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DURING THE 



SUMMER OF 1881 



(X) 



C. PEARSON, M. D 



WASHINGTON: 

JUDD & DETWEILER, PRINTERS. 

M^ 1881. d 



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A DIARY 



TRAVELS IN EUROPE 



DURING THii 



SUMMER OF 1881. 



jJsr-'nJLrriA' 
C^ PEARSON, M. D 



AV A S H I N G T N : 

JUDD & DETWEILER, PRINTERS. 

1S81. 



0\ 



^THE LIBRARY I 
Of C ONGR ESS! 

WASHINGTONJ 



A DIARY. 



June 25. — Steamer Ethiopia left its pier North River 
at 3.30 p.m., for Glasgow, has 76 saloon passengers on 
board, day clear and cool, water calm and smooth. As we 
steamed away from the dock hundreds of handkerchiefs 
waved us good bye, until they and the land faded from our 
view, and the sun sank over the wide waters. Spent the 
night comfortably, the vessel making 10 knots an hour. 

26. — Clear, with high cold winds all day; but making 
good time, overcoats and winter clothing in demand, our 
good ship rides the deep blue waves like a thing of life, 
other vessels seen at times in the distance. As I write a 
number of immense porpoises, probably frightened by the 
ship, show themselves half out of the water, they seem to 
be from four to eight feet' in length. How do they subsist ; 
or, Avhat do they live on in this briny deep ? I do not envy 
them their habitation, think they must be lonesome, it does 
well enough this pleasant day to sit here on deck and look 
over the country where they reside, they seem to have room 
enough but doubt if they have very agreeable neighbors. 
At 2 o'clock the sailors throw the line, and find the speed 
of the vessel to be 12 miles an hour. This line, with which 
the measure is taken, has attached to the end a tin or leather 
cup, or funnel-shaped shoe, from 4 to 6 inches long, with 
the large end next the ship, the line itself running round a 
reel held by a sailor ; the end of the line with the shoe 
attached, is thrown in to the waves, the cup catches on the 



4 ON THE OCEAN. [^Juue, 

water the force of the ship rapidly unwinds the cord from 
the reel, while an officer holds a small sand glass, when this 
has all run out the line is drawn in and the knots counted, 
these knots are at equal distances on the line, and each one 
counts two miles though in speaking of the speed knots and 
miles are usually considered the same thing. At 5 p. m. a 
cold rain is falling but not much wind, too cold to stay on 
deck. 

27. — After a good night's rest the sun rises clear and 
bright ; morning cool and calm ; water as still as restless 
old ocean ever is. At. 7 the engine stops, and the cry of 
a man overboard brings all the early risers on deck. The 
sailors lower the life boat and are off, now on the crest of 
a wave and again below. I conclude as I look at them 
with a glass as they recede till they seem but a speck in 
the distance, that their task is hopeless, but not so, they 
reach him more dead than alive a mile or more away, and 
bring him oh board, by which time he is revived. This 
was a steerage passenger about thivty-five years of age, who, 
being tired of life, had made his way to the upper deck and 
jumped over the railing for the purpose of " shuffling off 
this mortal coil." Whether his disappointment is satis- 
factory to himself or not, it was quite a success for the 
sailors. This is a delightful day, clear and calm. 

Blue roll the waters, blue the sky 
Seemed like an ocean hung on high. 

Numerous vessels are seen, and whales let us know by their 
spouting, their whereabouts. Some of the passengers amuse 
themselves with various kinds of games, while others are 
sick and see no pleasure in anything. 



1881.'] ON THE OCEAN. 5 

28. — Was awakened this morning by the barking of 
the Captain's dog, the little fellow has no other home than 
the ship, and seems to enjoy himself here; he is a general 
favorite amongst the passengers and makes friends with 
all. I never before discovered music in a dog's bark, but 
away out here in the trackless deep it reminds one of home, 
besides the songs of two or three canaries, and baskets of 
beautiful flowers make our ship appear more homelike. 
As we near the banks of Newfoundland we find fog, and 
the whistle is sounded every few minutes, the day, too, is 
more like November than June, too cold for comfort on 
deck, but with overcoats and four meals a day we manage 
to keep warm. This evening we lost our little dog over- 
board, whether by accident or not no one could tell, but he 
was seen to go, poor little "Spunk," we all felt sorry to lose 
him. 

29.— Cold and uninteresting day, passing the banks of 
Newfoundland, wind high, and sea much rougher than 
any day so far during our trip, weather hazy and misty, 
but few vessels in sight, some small fishing craft that rock 
and dip with the waves, wonder they do not capsize, and it 
would seem that some one had, for something that appeared 
to be the wreck of a boat floated by, but it seemed to have 
been long deserted. Many are sick, and I wonder all are 
not the way they have been eating for four days ; our 
course is nearly due east, and we are now about one thou- 
sand miles out, having made the following runs : 26th, 273 
miles ; 27th, 284 miles ; 28th, 281 miles ; 29th, 287 miles. 
Time on ship-board is reckoned by bells, and days from 12 
o'clock M. 



6 ON THE OCEAN. {Jl^^y, 

30. — Cold, disagreeable day ; one of the sailors says 
" there is a bit of a sea on." I thought so myself. It had 
been so long since I had been rocked in a cradle I did not 
take to it kindly. Then this rocks yoii endwise, sets you 
one minute on your feet, then on your head, gives you a 
few twists, and rolls you over a time or two to be sure you 
are rocked all over. I asked a professor of music to show 
me the fellow that wrote " Rock me in the cradle of the 
deep; " I wanted to kill him ; he said he was looking for 
him himself. There was no storm without, particularly, 
the most of it seemed inside; I thought of what Valentine 
says on a similar occasion ; " first the ship hove up, then the 
passengers hove up." Most every one was more or less 
sick. We are now in mid ocean where they say these 
heavy seas are nearly always encountered. 

July 1. — Day dark and rainy, not a wind storm but a 
fine, cold rain, with wind enough to make it disagreeable ; 
weather slightly warmer and sea not quite so rough, but 
enough so to suit most of us. Notwithstanding the rough 
sea, we made the best time yesterday of any day so far, 
291 miles. This was owing to the wind being in our favor 
and having the sails up. At 12 M. they report we are 
halfway over, and many of us feel just that way — "half 
seas over ; " for my own part, I am playing Tanner, have 
eaten nothing but one cracker for twenty-four hours. If 
I owned the Ethiopia, or in fact all the ships of the Anchor 
line, it would be a splendid time for some fellow to make 
his fortune, as I would sell out to day at a bargain, the 
vessel rolls as if it were drunk, and I guess we all must be. 

2. — Another chilly damp day, as I look out over the 



1881.'] ON EHE OCEAN. 7 

wide waters I can scarcely realize but that we are out of 
sight of land on a western 'prairie, but there is no stopping 
for wood and water, no new passengers coming on board, 
or old ones getting off, no calling out " twenty minutes for 
dinner, " we hear the hoarse breathing of the engine, feel 
the throb of its iron heart, and the heaving of its bosom 
like some huge monster of the deep, it never tires or stops 
to rest, it has its work to do and it does it well ; there is fog 
again to day, and the whistle is often heard, but the look- 
out on the bridge walks his ceaseless rounds, and the pilot 
at the wheel holds us on our course. A cold rain has been 
falling most of the day, but without much adverse wind, 
so that we have mad" good time, 304 miles yesterday, and 
302 the day befor^^. 

3. — Another foggy and chilly day but with fair winds. 
See a few sailing vessels, but they seem to make slow 
progress compared with our steamer, and some day, it too, 
will be just as slow, compared with some other craft that 
will skim these waves like a bird, and make this journey 
in five days. We are only prospecting on the shores of 
science; the great discoveries are yet to be made. Dis- 
tance run to day 272 miles. 

4. — Much the finest day out, but the first fourth of July 
when, in my experience, heavy underclothing and over- 
coats were at all comfortable. At 9 o'clock, on the upper 
deck, we threw to the winds the stars and stripes, had the 
Declaration of Independence read, let the eagle scream, 
and gave three cheers for the red, white, and blue, in which 
we were joined by the geAerous Scots. Afternoon had din- 
ner, toasts, and music ; God Save the Queen, Columbia 



8 ON THE OCEAN. \July, 

the Gem of the Ocean, &c. Misty, with slight rain again 
in the evening ; the sun does not set here till 8 o'clock, and 
when clear it does not get dark till 9, giving only about 
six hours of darkness ; rather hard on gas companies, and 
those who prefer gas to day-light. In twenty hours more 
we expect to sight land, the north coast of Ireland ; some 
of our passengers will there leave us. 

5. — To-day at eleven o'clock, the Captain tells us we are 
in sight of land. We made 283 miles yesterday, and will 
reach Glascow to-morrow. We are all anxious enough to 
see land, but we require to be told that we see it for I 
could discern nothing but a cloud or a fog-bank. The day 
was not clear, and they have much of this damp, foggy 
weather here, with chilly wind. At two o'clock, the clouds 
clear off, the sun comes out, and we clearly see the coast 
of Ireland, and pass quite near Tory Island which seems 
to be nothing but a rocky promontory rising out of the sea 
on which there is a light-house ; the view here is beautiful, 
but, I believe, when you have not seen land for a week or 
two, it is always beautiful, however rough or rocky. The 
green of Ireland now appears, though no sign of cultiva- 
tion as yet is visible, for the whole northwest coast seems to 
be a bold, rocky, barren cliff, in many places rising per- 
pendicularly for hundreds of feet, against which the waves 
of old ocean have dashed for innumerable ages ; but as we 
proceed on our way the face of the country, becomes 
changed. By four o'clock, as we near Moville, we pass a 
north of Ireland watering place, called Greencastle, and 
a more green and beautiful place, as seen from the boat, is 
rarely to be found. From the highhills in the distance whose 
tops are hid in blue smoke, to the Avater's edge, the whole 



1881.'] SCOTLAND. 9 

surface is dotted with white cottages, green plots, well cul- 
tivated gardens, hedges, castles, and ruins overgrown with 
ivy. At Moville nearly one half our passengers leave us, and 
here at six o'clock, from a Londonderry paper, we first hear 
of the shooting of President Garfield. At eight o'clock 
we pass the Giant's Causeway ; it could not be very dis- 
tinctly seen, but by a great effort I succeeded in imagin- 
ing how a superstitious people might have given it its 
name. 

6. — Arrived at Glasgow at 9 o'clock A. M. The scenery 
up the Clyde from Greenock is lovely, we pass Dumbarton 
Castle which figured conspicuously in the Scottish struggle 
for independence under Wallace and the Bruce. It is on 
a high, and from the river a perpendicular rock, nearly 200 
feet in height, and is now used as a fortress. Glasgow is 
the largest cit}'' in Scotland, and claims to be the third in 
size in Europe, containing over half a million inhabitants. 
It is probably the greatest ship building city in the world* 
Its old cathedral, mostly built nearly a thousand years ago, 
is a marvel for strength and durability. Far beneath its 
dark, chilly, dungeon-like basement lie the bones of in- 
numerable dead whose names you read on the tablets above 
them. How gloomy, desolate, and lonely, to be thus dis- 
posed of. Is not death itself cold and dreary enough 
without this gloom and mildew ? For myself, let me be 
buried on the hillside where the free winds of heaven may 
waft the j^erfume of flowers, and the song of the wild birds 
above me ; where the forest trees throw their shade in the 
summer, and their withered leaves in autumn ; these are the 
columns in the temple of nature where I worship, and there 
let me rest. 



10 SCOTLAND. VJ^uly, 

7. — To day I visited Ayr, the birth place of Burus. 
A part of the old cottage stands much as it did on that cold 
and stormy night, January 25th, 1759, when the bard was 
born. A little nook in one corner about six feet by four is 
pointed out as the spot, and a mark of repairs at one end, 
as the part of the wall that was blown in, making it neces- 
sary to remove the future poet when only a few hours old, 
to a safer and warmer abode. The walls of Alloway's 
" Auld haunted kirk," some two miles distant, are still 
standing, though the roof is gone, and it is now only a ruin, 
much frequented by sight-seers and relic hunters, in its 
old grave yard lie the remains of the poet's father and 
other relatives, while he is buried at Dnmfries. The 
well, near which the mither of Mungo " hanged hersel,'' 
is a beautiful clear spring in the hill-side, walled up like a 
well and filled to the brim with cold sparkling water that 
bubbles down through a shady grove of forest trees to 
where the " Doon pours down his floods." A little way 
above is the "Auld brig" over which Tam O'Shanter 
saved himself on that fearful night, when — 

A child might understand, 

The Deil had business on his hand. 

No one crosses it now except on foot, whether because it is 
not considered safe, or to prevent the wear. I stood on the 
" key stane " and looked down on the " bonnie Doon '' 
which still flows " amang the green braes " as in the long 
ago. A new bridge has been built a short distance above, 
over which the road now passes. The Burns monument, 
which is a kind of memorial hall, stands on an eminence 
overlooking the two bridges, a short distance below the 
new church Avhich is nearly opposite the old one. This 



1811.~\ SCOTLAND. 11 

hall contains a number of relics of the poet, among which, 
is the Bible presented by him to Highland Mary at their 
last meeting ; also, a lock of her hair, this, whether faded 
by time or not, is now very light in color, a kind of yel- 
lowish white. The old building in Ayr, now known as 
Tarn O'Shanter's Tavern, is still occupied as a beer saloon, 
the room where he met his " drouthy crony," and from 
whence he set out on his perilous journey at the " Hour 
o'night's black arch the keystane," is much as it was a 
hundred years ago. His chair and that of his friend, Souter 
Johnny, are still there, and as ale is still dispensed by the 
proprietor, I should not much wonder if another Tara on 
some dark and rainy night should be in as good condition 
on leaving it to see ghosts and spooks, as was Tam of 
O'Shanter long ago, and particularly, as I saw not a quar- 
ter of a mile away a large man lying by the roadside " O'er 
a' the ills o' life victorious" while his wife threw her shawl 
over his face and a small child held his horse. Mauchline 
is a small town twelve miles from Ayr, and near this is 
Mossgiel farm where Burns lived four years and wrote 
much of his poetry ; here are the fields where he ploughed 
down the daisy in the early spring and turned up the mouse 
in November. I procured a daisy from the former, and 
would have brought a mouse from the latter could I have 
found one, but had to be content with a few heads of red 
clover. The room where the poet was married, at the house 
of his friend. Given Hamilton, is a small apartment not 
more than ten feet wide by twelve long, and they try to 
keep it as it was on that occcasion as nearly as possible. 
But we must bid Burns, as well as the " Banks and braes of 
Bonnie Doon" good-bye. After this day's visit to his old 
home, I wrote the following : 



12 SCOTLAND. {July-i 

THE HOME OF BURNS. 

In this rude cot first breathed the bard, 

Who woke in one responsive strain ; 
A thousand hearts in fond regard, 

Even o'er the distant western main. 

His soul of song coukl warm tlie heart, 

Transform affection nito rhj'me ; 
Till love and sympathy depart, 
) 'Twill echo down the flight of time. 

Here's Irwin, Lugar, Doon, and Ayr, 

His inspiration painted so ; 
Here Laverocks sing, and Hawthorns fair 

Bloom, as he saw tliem long ago. 

Here's Mossgiel farm, and now as then 

The daisies bloom, and in their turns 
The mice will build their nests, but when 

Will Scotland find another Burns. 

8. — Visited Loch Lomond, Loch Katrine, the Trossacks, 
Sterling, and Edinburg. The scenery around these places 
is not only beautiful but historic as well. Ellen's Isle, men- 
tioned by Scott in his Lady of the Lake, is an elevated 
mound-like and romantic spot containing little more than 
an acre of ground, or rather rock, it may have served the 
poet as a theme, but I cannot see why Ellen Douglas or 
any one else should want to revisit it often. The blue tops 
of Ben Lomond, and Ben Leddi, are ceen in the distance. 
Before reaching sterling you see to the left the Wallace 
monument, and a little further on, on your right near Ster- 
ling Castle is the statue of Bruce ; he stands with his hand 
on the hilt of his sword which is partly drawn, looking 
towards the field of Bannockburn which is not far distant. 



1881.'] SCOTLAND. 13 

Here is the old cathedral where Queen Mary was crowned, 
together with the old Bible and pulpit from which John 
Knox preached the coronation sermon. Mary was born at 
Linlithgow, an old town some twenty miles from here, on 
the road to Edinburg. 

9. — Spent the day in sight-seeing about the beautiful 
city of Edinburg, almost every foot of which is historic. 
Here is the old castle, a part of which they tell you was 
built twelve hundred years ago. From the south side it 
would be impossible to gain access to it, as the rock on 
which it stands rises almost perpendicularly three hundred 
feet in height. Everything in and about it indicates that 
it was built at a time when peace was the exception, and 
war and defense the rule. Here kings were imprisoned, 
and from its dark dungeons taken to. execution. No one, 
without seeing it, can jorm an idea as to what it was in its 
prime, or, even what it is to-day. It is now used as a gar- 
rison. Holyrood ■ Castle with its massive walls, some of 
them six feet in thickness, still stands as it did in the days 
of Queen Mary and good " Queen Bess" ; here the bedroom 
of the former is shown with its odd furniture, the bed on 
which she slept, and the room wherelizzic was murdered. 
These rooms, as all others in these old castles are small 
and dark and poorly ventilated, built for safety, not for 
comfort. 

10. — Got to Melrose, 40 miles south of Edinburgh, at 
9 : 30 p. m. ; wrote my name in the register, and went to 
bed with no other than day-light ; slept comfortably under 
two heavy sheets, four blankets, and one spread. The days 
are cool and clear, an exception to most of the weather 



14 SCOTLAND. [July-, 

here. They say it rains more than half the time. Visited 
Abbottsford, the home of Walter Scott ; it is situated in a 
wild picturesque spot some two miles distant. The build- 
ing, as they nearly all are in this country, is built of stone, 
and so many changes and improvements have been made, 
both on the buildings and grounds of late years, that it is 
questionable whether, if Scott himself returned he would 
not require a guide. The grounds are embellished with 
gravel walks, hedges, and wide-spreading birch trees, which 
give to the place the appearance of a cemetery, and as this 
was Sunday the stillness added to its solitude. What this old 
town may be on other days I know not, but, with this and 
Melrose Abbey, I concluded it would not be amiss to con- 
sider the whole place a cemetery where a hundred genera- 
tions, including the present, are buried. The Abbey is one 
of the oldest mentioned in Scottish history, and is now a 
ruin; both grounds and building seem neglected, moss and 
ivy cling to the broken columns and arches, while the birds 
build their nests far up on the crumbling walls. Thus does 
time make all things even. 

11. — Left Melrose last night at 10.30 o'clock ; but not 
still dark, I objected to travelling at night, as I wished 
to see the country, but I found it made little diiFereuce, 
as a clear night here is about as light as a dark day, of 
which Ave have so many. On the way to Sheffield I saw 
men mowing in the meadow at half past three o'clock in 
the morning, and from the amount of work they had done, 
they had, evidently, been at it for an hour. Sheffield is a 
smoky old city with the usual high chimneys of English 
manufacturing towns. Here the massive stone walls of 
Scotland give place to the dingy brick. Arrived at Bir- 



1881.'] ENGLAND. 15 

mingham at 6 ; Warwick at 9 a. m., and StrafFord-on-Avon 
at 2 p. ni. ; of the former there is little of interest to be 
said, like all other manufacturing places it is dark and 
smoky. Warwick Castle is wonderfully romantic, and its 
surroundings very beautiful. Its age dates away back to 
the days of the Crusaders, who brought and planted, they 
tell us, the Cedars of Lebanon that now grow ai'ound it, 
and which, from their appearance, must be a thousand 
years old. It contains one table said to have cost $50,000, 
and a vase in its conservatory over ten feet in diameter, 
carved from a solid block of marble, and found in the. 
Tiber, near Rome. It is said to be the largest vessel of the 
kind in existence, and is thought to be over 2,000 years 
old. The view from the top of the old castle, over two 
hundred feet above the Avon that flows at its base, is beauty 
itself, but we must leave it for Stratford, the birth-place 
and former home of Shakespeare. This old town would 
doubtless long since have been hidden from public notice 
had not England's bard given it immortality. The old 
house where the poet was born stands much as it did 
300 years ago. Like the one in which Burns was born, 
it seems to have been a frame of wood filled in with clay, 
the floor of each cottage is laid with stone, arranged with- 
out order or system, as is also the case in the house of 
Annie Hathaway, the wife of. the poet. The storms and 
suns, however, of over three centuries have left their im- 
press on these rude cottages, and as we view them to-day 
we cannot help thinking that however unequally mated 
mentally, he and Annie might have been, in regard 
to humble birth they were nearly equal. The house in 
which he died has been torn down, and a new memorial 
hall erected near the spot. One large room in this is fitted 



16 ENGLAND. {Julljy 

up as a theatre ; it belongs to a company of which Edwin 
Booth is president ; it is mainly supported by donations and 
contributions. Shakespeare was buried, as was the custom 
in those days, under the stone floor of the church in Strat- 
ford, where a stone tablet, a little north of the chancel, 
bears his name, together with that strange inscription so 
familiar to all, and about the authorship of which so much 
doubt has been expressed ; but a much better epitaph 
would have been from Hamlet in regard to his father — 

. ^-^ . 

" He was a man take him^all in all, 

We shall not look upon his like again." 

12. — Got to London last night, and attended the Medical 
Convention to-day, the sessions being held only from 2 to 
5 : 30 p. m. No accurate conception can be had of London 
without seeing it, for it is a world in itself. Nothing but 
steam can convey you through it in any reasonable time. 
Only think of going shopping down town so far away- as to 
require steam cars, running at the rate of thirty miles an 
hour, half an hour to take you where you wish to go. 
They have steam on what they call the Metropolitan Eoads, 
but instead of being elevated, as with us, they are right the 
contrary, as in nearly everything else, and rrun under the 
ground. 

13. — Visited Westminster Abbey, House of Parliament, 
National Art Gallery, British Museum and Library. In 
this abbey lie the remains of their kings for the past eight 
hundred years. I inquired for the tomb of Richard III, 
but the guide told me he was never buried with the rest, 
but in a small church yard near where he fell at the battle 
of Bosworth Field. This is a most wonderful receptacle of 



1881.'] ' ENGLAND. 17 

the dead ; the tombs are old and grand. In the museum, 
one would suppose that a pair of everything that had ever 
been made in pairs, was to be found. Parchments musty 
with age, papyrus on which the ink is as black to day as 
when it was put there thirteen hundred years ago. Paint- 
ings by the old masters, and sculpture over 2,000 years 
old. Here is the celebrated Rosetta Stone which has 
served as a key to the hieroglyphics found on ancient 
monuments ; it is like a large black slate about three feet long- 
by two and a half wide, it is kept in a glass case. A lady, 
who seemed to be an antiquarian, was busy reading and 
explaining to a class, the mysterious inscriptions on the old 
tombs, and sarcophagi, while scores of artists, both male 
and female, from different parts of the world were sketching 
the various objects of interest. Hundreds of students old 
and young, many of them authors, were busy in the library 
searching out statistics and authorities; for anything in the 
way of a book that can be found anywhere may be ob- 
tained here. 

14. — Went to-day to the South Kensington Museum, 
another wonderful collection of paintings, tapestry, sculp- 
ture, and a thousand things that represent nothing in 
heaven or on earth ; the substance of which never had an ex- 
istence except in the imagination of the artist. Here, 
again, are other painters at work copying from the origi- 
nals ; many of these were evidently Americans, some 
Germans, and other nationalities. Supposing that about 
everything in the way of art had been seen, I was not 
prepared on visiting the Crystal Palace to witness the 
whole thing repeated, only on a grander scale if possible, 
2 



18 ENGLAND. [July, 

for this is a little Paradise. America cau never equal the 
collection of rare and ancient curiosities contained in these 
places, as these cannot be bought, and there are no dupli- 
cates — all we can expect is copies of the originals. Many 
stalls or booths for the sale of fancy articles are kept in 
the palace, and being desirous of getting a souvenir, and 
in need of a pocket comb, I concluded this would be a 
good place to buy something of English manufacture much 
better and cheaper than I could get it in the United States, 
so I paid a shilling for a small horn comb that I could have 
bought at home for nearly one-half less, and soon after saw 
on it the eagle and stars. Of course, I concluded I had 
not made a big thing by my purchase. 

15. — Went to the Tower, this far-famed ancient State 
Prison where so many kings and nobles were once confined, 
and from whence they were taken only to lose their heads 
on Tower Hill, just above the Tower, and now pretty much 
built over. Here is the block on which the Duke of Kil- 
marnock and others were beheaded, the mark of the axe 
still being plainly visible. It was in a wing called the 
"bloody tower" that the Duke of York and the young 
prince were smothered by direction of their uncle Eichard 
III. This room, as well as the one in which for so many 
years Walter Raleigh was imprisoned, is not usually open 
to visitors, and I was assured at every point we could not 
get in, but being accompanied by an interesting and good 
looking English lady, who was very pleasant to the officers 
in charge, and by the use of a few shillings, we were ad- 
mitted. The room is small and dark with only one small 
window to admit light through its thick walls, it is kept as 



1881.'] ENGLAND. 19 

nearly as possible in its original condition, the floor (for it 
is on the second floor,) is laid with boards some eight or ten 
inches wide, and would now be considered a very poor job 
of carpenter work. A few years ago a winding narrow 
stone stairway was discovered leading to this room, by 
which it is supposed the murderers entered, this does not 
seem to be more than twenty inches wide, scarcely space 
enough to admit the body of a large man, and without a 
ray of light, but such mysterious passages are not uncom- 
mon in these old castles, both above and below ground, 
and in those days, to be condemned to the Tower was almost 
equivalent to the death sentence. The dungeon is one of 
the most remarkable things of the kind in existence, it is 
under ground, or in the basement of the building, and 
originally had no door, one has since been made through 
the thick stone wall, the only means of access having been 
from above through an opening in the arch some 25 or 30 feet 
from the floor, and it was only through this that light or air 
could be admitted,. The walls are of solid masonry, and 
here are 15 feet in thickness. This gloomy chamber is about 
40 feet long by 20 wide, and perhaps 25 high to the centre 
of the arch, so that when a prisoner was let down here, all 
hope of escape must have forever vanished. Another part 
is called the Beauchamp Tower, and in this the walls are 
nearly covered by names and inscriptions cut in the stone, 
among the rest is " Jane," which was put here by the un- 
fortunate Lady Jane Gray during her imprisonment in 
this room, in 1554. Visited Guild Hall where the city 
council and aldermen meet, and sat in the chair of the 
Lord Mayor, first telling the officer in charge that I was a 
republican, but he seemed not to be the least disturbed by 



20 ENGLAND. [July, 

the name. This hail is not usually open to visitors, but 
being accompanied by an English friend who was ac- 
quainted, we were admitted. This day the mercury noted 
97° in the shade ; said to be the hottest ever known in 
London. 

16. — Went to Windsor Castle the home of the Queen. 
It is nearly thirty miles from London up the river Thames. 
The place and some of the buildings have a history and 
tradition, dating away back to the days of Julius Csesar. 
The location is one of the finest that could well be found 
anywhere, and the view from the top of the round tower, 
is unsurpassed in England. The park stretching away over 
fifty miles in circumference, and containing eighteen thou- 
sand acres is finely laid out with groves, walks, and drives, 
one of which, as straight as line can be drawn, is over three 
miles long and bordered on both sides by two rows of elm 
trees over two hundred years old. Away in the smoky 
distance may be seen the old church where Gray wrote his 
Elegy as — 

" The Curfew tolled the knell of parting day." 

Also the former home of William Penn. This place has 
been the home of England's kings for over eight hundred 
years ; but on this occasion, the queen being at home, no 
visitors are admitted into her apartments. But the govern- 
ment soldiers, with their red coats, are still marching on 
their regular beats just as they have been doing for eight 
centuries. 

17. — Visited the Zoological Gardens, a wild romantic 
place, saw the lions and other animals fed at four o'clock. 



1881.'] ENGLAND. 21 

They seem to know their dinner time without a clock, and 
manifest it by their restlessness. The collection of wild 
beasts here, may be more extensive than that at Philadel- 
phia ; but no finer, though they claim to have a pair of all 
the animals, birds, reptiles, and insects, on the earth. 
These gardens are not open to the public on Sunday, except 
by tickets from some member of the society, notwithstand- 
ing, hundreds of persons of all nationalities were here 
sight-seeing or sitting in the shade of the innumerable forest 
trees. 

18. — At Hyde Park to-day ; this is an immense country 
in the heart of a great city, with forest trees, drives, walks, 
lakes, &c. Here is displayed in the cool of the evening 
the fine horses and turnouts of England, with liveried ser- 
vants, and lady riders. There is a broad shady drive of 
probably five or six miles where hundreds of their finest 
carriages and teams are to be seen filled with the city's 
aristocracy, while on the other side, some fifty yards dis- 
tant, there is another broad thoroughfare where hundreds 
of ladies and gentlemen are having a good time on horse- 
back. The space between these two tracks is a shady lawn, 
where chairs for spectators can be had for a penny each. 
There can be no doubt that in fine horses the English beat 
us, but as riders they are complete failures. I did not see 
one graceful lady rider, while the men are perfectly awful ; 
they, probably, are obliged to ride much less than we do, 
which may account for the difierence. 

19. — Went to Victoria Park, a vast tract of land laid 
out in an odd way, a part of it, at least 25 acres, seems to 
be an old common with only here and there a shade tree. 



22 ENGLAND. [_July, 

It would make a good base-ball ground, and the boys were 
using it for what they called "cricket," much like base-ball. 
Other parts of the park are beautifully laid out with shady 
walks, artificial lakes, and flowery lawns. Scores of idle 
men and boys were lounging on the seats, or sleeping on 
the grass, while hundreds of hard-looking, dirty-faced chil- 
dren were amusing themselves in various ways, trying to 
persuade themselves they were happy. This park is, evi- 
dently, to the poor people of London what Hyde is to 
the rich. Visited one of the theatres at night, small au- 
dience, and a queer affair all through, and as everything 
here is contrary, and as we go up stairs to get in, of course, 
they must go down. They have female ushers, and sell the 
programs. 

20. — Visited Kew Gardens, as they are called, but it is 
really another large and beautiful park, much prettier than 
any other in London. Flowers, shrubbery, shady walks, 
and green lawns for miles in extent, artificial lakes, monu- 
ments, &c., all free to the public. To-night, went to the 
academy of wax figures, the most extensive collection, and 
exhibition of the kind extant. The figures are all life size, 
each representing some personage, and dressed in the cos- 
tume they wore, while living, or as nearly so as possible. 
One of the first on entering is a police officer, and looks so 
exactly as they do on the streets, that visitors ask him ,a 
great many questions which he cannot answer. One figure, 
of a sleeping beauty, attracted much attention, the bosom 
rose and fell as in the act of respiration, and as naturally 
as if in life. One old gentleman sat in a chair with spec- 
tacles, and quaker hat on, turning his head from side to 



1881.'] ENGLAND. 23 

side as something seemed to attract his attention. How 
accurate other likenesses might have been, of course I had 
no means of knowing; but those of Lincoln, Grant, and 
Garfield, were simply caricatures. 

21. — A monument erected in commemoration of the 
great fire which occurred here in 1666, is over two hundred 
feet in height. I went to the top of it to-day, from which 
I looked out on the great city that stretched away in every 
direction as far as the eye could reach, a world in minature, 
with its hum, its smoke, and its spires ; while the winding 
Thames in the distance with its innumerable shipping 
added to the beauty of the scene. Also went to Hampton 
Court, another large park, with its old castle. In the latter 
may be seen acres of j)aintings, some of which are more 
than two hundred years old, but the colors of which are 
still bright and clear. Ancient tapestry lines the walls 
enough to carpet thousands of square feet, all of which is 
made by hand, and of which it is said one person can only 
make a square yard in a year. Some two thousand persons 
have apartments in this castle, and yet the rooms filled with 
paintings and other curiosities, would furnish accommoda- 
tions for as many more. Here are to be seen the bed, cur- 
tains, and furniture of Queen Charlotte, and other queens of 
the past, who, it would seem, from the length of the bedsteads, 
must have been very short, these being at least a foot 
shorter than ours of to-day, and are nearly square; but 
with high posts and heavy curtains, full twelve feet long, 
The grounds in the park are finely laid out, old trees. 
flowers, lakes, and walks; here is the celebrated bushy 
park, and that curiously constructed hedge of hawley called 



24 ENGLAND, \_July^ 

the " maze," out of which, after a person has once got in,. 
it is almost impossible to find the way, without a guide 
who stands on a platform commanding a view of the 
grounds, and keeps constantly calling to one to follow the 
lady with the red ribbon, and to another the white hat, &c. 
This is thought to be great fun, and a few pennies are 
charged for admission. One portion of the grounds seemed 
to be intended for picnics, and hundreds of children were 
having a good time with their plays and games. This place 
is noted for a conference held here in 1604, the result of 
which was an authorized version of the scriptures ; here 
Cardinal Wolsey held forth — 

" Full many a summer in a sea of glory," 

and his hall is still to be seen. Henry VIII also spent 
much of his time here, and robbed the land owners for 
miles around of their property to convert it into a deer park 
for his own pleasure and amusement. Hampton Court is 
reached by steam cars in about one hour, and is about 
twenty-five miles from the main part of the city, on or near 
the Thames, as nearly all their castles are, in and about 
London, and nearly everywhere you go you see the red- 
coated subject of the queen on his beat with his musket ; 
but what use he is, or what good he does, no one can tell. 

22. — Left London last night, and by rail and steamer, 
reached Antwerp to day at 11 a. m. This is an old city 
containing now about 150,000 inhabitants, though formerly 
it was much larger. Here is an old house and shop where, 
the Germans say, the first movable types were made by 
Gutenburg, also, the tools and bellows with which he used 



1881.'] BBLaiUM. " 25 

to work ; but the same thing is claimed, I believe, for Straus- 
berg. Some of these first letters are shown, and also copies 
of the first books printed with them. Their Cathedral has 
a spire nearly or quite 400 feet in height, and the building 
is decorated inside with paintings by Rubens, who came to 
this city with his mother to reside when only ten years of 
age. Visited an old castle, formerly a prison, built in the 
eleventh century, and used in the sixteenth for the con- 
finement of heretics. By the aid of candles we descended 
the narrow stone stairway that leads to the dark damp cells 
below. Saw the iron collar and chain and staple in the 
stone arch above, where, and in the name of religion, the 
martyr was drawn up to make him confess. An old and 
deep well now covered up, at the foot of a dark winding 
stairway, was pointed out, where the captive in descending, 
without any warning, stepped in and went to the bottom. 
Other small stone vaults are here without light or air, 
where the victims were confined till they were smothered or 
recanted. And I thought of Ingersoll, and concluded with 
him, if it had been my case, I would have said, " have 
it your own way, one God ortwenty, only let me out. On 
the streets here women and dogs draw carts, and though 
this old prison is no longer used as an inquisition, the pro- 
gress of the people is dreadfully slow. The country through 
Belgium seems to have originally been a bog or marsh, re- 
claimed by drainage and embankments ; the soil is produc- 
tive, the crops consist principally of rye, wheat, oats, and bar- 
ley ; they were harvesting the two former, the grain is cut by 
hand with sickles, and apparently every straw is saved ; 
the women do much of the work in the field. It is hard 
to tell where one farm leaves ofi* and another begins, as 



26 BELGIUM. - [July, 

they have no fences, and but few hedges. Their grain is 
sown in small patches of one-half to two acres. No corn 
is raised here, scarcely any in England, and I believe none 
in Scotland ; and certainly never can be if this weather is 
a fair sample of the summers, for it is, one would think, 
too cold to raise anything ; still, potatoes are extensively 
cultivated, and every inch of ground is made to produce 
as much as possible, and the country resembles a series of 
gardens more than farms. The houses which are usually 
low, are built with a yellowish brick, and covered with tile. 

23. — Arrived at Brussels at 11 o'clock a. m. This is a 
city of some 200,000 inhabitants, and the capital of Bel- 
gium. The houses are principally brick or stone, plastered 
or cemented on the outside, and painted a yellowish white. 
The streets in the older part of the city are crooked and 
narrow, the sidewalks being from twenty inches to three 
feet wide. This is a great market for the manufacture of 
carpets and fine lace. , the latter is all made by women, 
and by hand ; and we may h^ave some idea of how scanty 
their wages must be, when a piece of lace that requires 
their diligent labor for one week, can be bought for five 
francs, about one dollar of our money. In the city hall,. 
I visited the room where the evening before the great battle 
of Waterloo, 

" There was a sound of revelry by night," 

as the ball was going on when the news came that the 
French were approaching. In the art gallery they have 
many fine paintings, some of which are 20 by 30 feet; some 
of these henious representations, it is said, taxed the imag- 



1881.'] BELGIUM. 27 

iuation of the artist, whose name was Keizer, to such an 
extent, that he became insane ; and it occurred to me from 
his work he might have been so before he began. 

24. — Went to the field of Waterloo, which is about 
thirteen miles nearly due south of Brussels. The drive 
there and back is, for the distance, the finest I have ever seen. 
One road is bordered for miles on either side with beech 
trees planted at equal distances, and to all appearances 
being two hundred years old. For another two or three 
miles there is an artificial forest of these trees, which, al- 
though their trunks are trimmed up some fifty feet, stand 
so nearly together as to prevent the sun's rays from ever 
reaching the ground. The combined jjowers have erected 
on the field a huge earthen mound or pyramid two hundred 
feet high, on the top of which is a monument witb a mas- 
sive lion looking towards France. But any one who will 
take the trouble to examine the grounds may easily see 
under what an immense disadvantage the Frencli fought. 
Had Napoleon occupied Wellington's position, the battle 
would have terminated in his favor the first day. This field, 
once enriched by the blood of one hundred thousand men, 
except the old orchard where one thousand five hundred 
men are said to have fallen in fifteen minutes, is nearly 
covered by fields of wheat. On our return we passed over 
a road built by Napoleon from Brussels to Paris, a distance 
of some two hundred miles ; it is straight, well graded, and 
paved the entire distance with belgian blocks like a city 
street, and I doubt if in all Europe Napoleon has a finer 
or more durable monument than this. 



28 GEKMANY. \July, 

25. — Got to Cologne at 11 a. m. This is an old, and 
once a walled city. It is on the Rhine, and was founded 
probably by the Romans as early as the fourth century ; 
its population is about one hundred and forty thousand, 
and it is the capital of the Rhenish Province. Its great 
cathedral is one of its principal objects of interest, and it 
is indeed a most wonderful piece of mechanism, if not to 
say monument to superstition and folly. The arched ceil- 
ing in the center aisle is said to be 161 feet from the floor, 
and its cross nearly 400. In the church of St. Ursula, 
built some 800 years ago, they show you what they allege 
are the bones of 11,000 virgins, slain by the Huns over 
1400 years ago for their faith in the holy catholic religion. 
From the time these virgins are said to have been massa- 
cred to the laying of the foundation of this church, a small 
interval of some 600 years, the history of these bones is not 
very clear. That they have a large collection of human 
bones here is very certain ; where they came from, or to 
whom they belonged, remains in doubt. They also claim 
to have here a piece of the original cross, two thorns from 
the crown, and one of the urns that held the wine that 
Christ manufactured from water. That many believe these 
stories there is less doubt than that they are true. 

26. — Left Cologne by railroad for Bohn, and take steam- 
er on the Rhine for Bingen and Mayence. The Rhine is 
no wider, and perhaps, not deeper than the Allegheny at 
Pittsburgh, at least, no large boats are to be seen on it above 
Bohn. In many places its banks are cultivated to near 
the water's edge, while in others they are hilly and moun- 
tainous. These high peaks are in many places crowned 



1881.'] GERMANY. 29 

by the ruins of old castles erected many centuries ago. 
High up on these beetling crags where it might be thought 
nothing but the eagle would desire to build, but the same 
motive that prompts the eagle to seek these inaccessible 
cliffs, impelled the men of those days to do the same — self- 
protection. On its hillsides, every available foot of ground 
is utilized by the practical Germans, and the grape is ex- 
tensively cultivated. Many strange and romantic legends 
are told of the Rhine — its ivy-clad towers — its rocks and 
hills ; nor is this to be wondered at when we reflect that for 
so many centuries all this picturesque country was the abode 
of a superstitious and warlike people. I like to see such 
ruins as are here to be met with, not because of their anti- 
quity, but because a more advanced state of civilization has 
made them what they are, and that time the great iconoclast 
has dared to lay its hand on the follies of men, and in a 
thousand years more the lofty cathedrals and costly temples 
will crumble before the same power. " The mill of the gods 
grinds slowly, but exceeding fine." It is difficult anywhere 
to find finer or more varied sceney than on the banks of the 
Rhine from Cobleutz to Bingen. Byron wrote — 

The Rhine still nobly foams and flows, 

The charm of this enchanted ground ; 
And all its thousand turns disclose. 

Some fresher beauty varying round. 

Coblentz is called the Gibralter of the Rhine. Its fortifi- 
cation on a high rocky cliff overlooking the river and town, 
is indeed a formidable looking place, and yet Napoleon 
took it on his way to Russia. Bingen, at the mouth of the 
Nahe, is not a large city ; it probably contains 8,000 in- 



30 GERMANY. {Jldy^ 

habitants who seem to be mainly engaged in the manufac- 
ture of wine, and what else could they do with their steep 
rocky hillsides than to cultivate the grape ; and who but 
a German would have the patience to even do this. It was 
evening as we steamed up to the town, and of course we 
saw the sunlight shine — 

On the vine-clad hills of Bmgen, 
Fair Bingen on the Rhine. 

27. — Stopped a few hours at Worms, saw its cathedral, 
and bronzed statues of Luther and other German reformers. 
It is a quaint old city with narrow, winding, filthy streets, 
was once quite historic and contained five times the 
population it does to-day. Arrived at Heidelberg, at 3 
o'clock p. m. The city is said to contain 22,000 inhabitants, 
but a city in the United States covering no more ground, 
' would not have more than one-fourth this number. It is 
quite narrow, being confined between the river Neckar 
and the mountain covered by the " Black Forest." This 
mountain rises some 700 feet above the city, and covered 
as it is by. this 'dense forest of pine, gives rise to its name. 
Heidelberg is noted for its University ; and one of the 
branches taught here seems to be fighting. The students 
have a room about 50 feet long by 30 wide, where they go 
to fight with swords, the floor is stained with blood ; their 
faces seem to suflfer the most, and they may be seen by 
scores on the street with deep scars, which they seem to 
regard as a great honor. 

28. — Heidelberg castle must have been at one time one 
of the grandest and most extensive in Europe. It stands 
on the mountain side overlooking the city, and perhaps 400 



1881.'] GERMANY. 31 

feet above it ; and here part of it has stood for over 700 
years, defying time, gunpowder, and lightning, though all 
of these have left upon it their impress. The French blew 
up part of it in the 16th century, and it was afterwards 
fired by lightning. It is now, and has been for a hundred 
years, a magnificent ruin ; vines of ivy two hundred years 
old climb its walls, and trees as old wave their branches 
far below, and on the mountain far above it, one of its 
round towers, the top of which is reached by 150 winding 
stone steps, is still in a tolerable state of preservation ; but 
few traces of its former grandeur now remain. One of its 
vaults was once used as a wine cellar, and in it are three 
wine bins or tanks, one of which is capable of holding 
50,000 gallons, and is said to have been filled two or three 
times since it was built, it is 36 feet long, by 24 feet in di- 
ameter, made of wood in exact imitation of a barrel, the 
staves being eight inches in thickness. The castle has sub- 
terranean chambers, with dark winding stairways, massive 
stone arches and walls, some of which are 17 feet in thick- 
ness, these fill the beholder with astonishment but not with 
wonder that the same age that built the cathedrals should 
build these castles also ; the former to solicit God's protec- 
tion, the latter for their own, in case the former should be 
refused. But the men that built these have gone, and five 
hundred years hence the coming generations on a western 
continent can point with pride to a grander monument, and 
relic of the past, erected by their ancestors, and that, too, 
not a ruin, but to that temple of progress and reform, a 
country's salvation, the free school house. 

29. — After a long but rather a pleasant day's ride of 



32 GEEMANY. \July-, 

over 200 miles from Heidelberg, by way of Stutgart, we 
reach Munich, another old town of nearly 200,000 inhabi- 
tants, and the capital of Bavaria. The country through 
which the road passes presents in many places the appear- 
ance of a western prairie, the absence of timber, except 
fruit and cultivated shade trees, adds to this similarity ; no 
such thing as fences and very few hedges are to be seen, no 
country school, and very few farm houses, the people seem to 
live in villages and cultivate every available foot of ground ; 
they sow and plant in narrow strips from twenty to one hun- 
dred feet wide, to fifty and three hundred yards long, a strip 
of wheat, another of rye, oats, clover, potatoes, and ploMed 
ground ; all these and many more, with their varied colors, 
give the country the appearance of a cultivated landscape 
garden. Why they farm in this way I never could learn, the 
crops seem to be good, and as it was just their harvest, men, 
women, cows, and horses, were busy in the fields. But what 
they do with their grain is hard to tell as no barns or stacks 
are to be seen, they let the grain stand till very ripe, and 
probably thrash it with flails on the ground as American 
farmers did their buckwheat fifty years ago ; at all events, 
in one instance, they Avere at work in this way. As we near 
Munich, spurs of the Alps are to be seen in the distance, 
their high peaks glistening in the setting sun like giant 
columns supporting the blue. 

30. — The Iser river, on the bank of which Munich 
stands, is not so large as the Danube, which we cross at 
Ulm, on the way from Heidleberg ; its water has a green 
color, and reminds one of the Green river in Kentucky. 
Visited the Royal Palace to-day, and it being Saturday, 



IScS'l.^ GERMANY. 33 

the King's private gallery of paintings was open to the 
public. The collection is fine, but intensely German, and 
with a German guide who could not speak a word of 
English, of course the shmv was not so interesting. In 
th'^ National Art Gallery the paintings are more varied, 
and I should say much better, among others they have a 
representation of the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, 
the stars and stripes look natural, but General Washington 
would scarcely know himself The bronze foundry here 
is quite famous throughout the world, and some of their 
work may be seen at Washington, the east door of the 
Capitol, and statue of Lincoln in Lincoln Park. The 
statue of Bavaria is an immense piece of workmanship 
of this kind, it stands on an elevation overlooking the 
city, is a representation of a female crowned with laurel, 
and with the pedestal is nearly one hundred feet in height. 
The figure is well proportioned, and its head large enough 
inside to hold six men. This is reached by a narrow wind- 
ing stair-way, and the ascent is made with some difficulty, 
and I was disappointed at finding the view so poor owing 
to the small size of the openings ; the metal also, heated by 
the sun, made it very uncomfortable and somewhat danger- 
ous. 

31. — Spent this day also in Munich. The accommoda- 
tions at the Hotel Bellvue are quite good for Europe, and 
whoever thinks it necessary to drink beer or wine while 
travelling in this country must except Munich ; they give 
you nothing for breakfast, however, but hard bread, butter, 
and coffee or tea, and as I drink nothing but cold water, 
of course my meal was rather slim. Sunday is a gay day 
3 



34 ITALY. [Augitst, 

here, beer gardens, shops, stores, churches, aucl theatres are 
all open, "you pays your money and you takes your 
choice." But soldiers are to be seen everywhere, either 
marching the streets with brass bands, filling the beer 
saloons, or standing on the street corners ; it would seem as 
if half the male population of middle age were in some 
way connected with the army. 

August 1. — Leave Munich up the valley of the lun 
by Brenner Pass over the Alps, up, up at a grade of over 
one hundred feet to the mile through dark tunnels and by 
yawning chasms, until we reach an elevation of 4,000 feet, 
with mountain peaks frowning down on us from every side, 
whose bald heads hold in their gorges drifted snow that 
glistens in the bright sunlight, and whose faces are fur- 
rowed by the torrents of many a score of centuries. We 
begin to descend, and by eleven o'clock at night, after a 
ride by rail of fourteen hours, arrived at Verona, in Italy. 
Who has not heard of Verona, the tomb of the Capulets, 
and former home of the Montagues ? an old city located 
on the banks of the Adige, and now containing about 
70,000 people. 

2. — The places of most interest in Verona are the Royal 
Cathedral, the Church of St. Zeno, the old Arena, the 
tomb of Juliet, and that of the Scaligeri, who lived and 
ruled in Verona two hundred years before the Montagues. 
The Cathedral, they tell us, has stood here since the ninth 
century, but that the Church is much older, and that the 
floor and foundation belonged to a monastry 1400 years 
ago. The Amphitheatre is still older, and was built by 



1881.1 ITALY. 35 

the Romans before the Christian era. Some four hundred 
years ago a part of the outer walls was destroyed by an 
earthquake, and the remaining portion seems to be in such 
a good state of preservation that nothing less than this can 
prevent it from standing forever. The massive stone steps 
or seats, capable of holding 35,000 spectators, are still in 
position, and standing room is afforded for 35,000 more. 
The dens where the wild beasts were kept, as well as the 
cells or dungeons where the gladiators were imprisoned, 
before being called out to face these in deadly conflict, re- 
main just as they were 2,000 years ago when this barber- 
ous custom afforded amusement for 70,000 Romans, The 
garden and old monastery, in which is pointed out the tomb 
of the Capulets, or of Juliet, is most sadly neglected, part 
of the building is used as a depot for storing the cocoons of 
silk-worms. A sarcophagus in a small room, Avith stone 
walls and floor, is said to be the one in which the fair 
Juliet was laid ; the lid is gone, and no sign of remains are 
to be seen, there is an impression of a human form cut in 
the stone bottom, but whether this was originally a tomb 
or a bath tub is hard to tell, there are holes through the 
stone, and it is said water once ran through these, and that 
upon removing the lid centuries after the tomb was con- 
structed, it was found the action of the water had decom- 
posed, and washed away every particle of the remains. 
This may not be authentic, but it is the story they tell. 
The old romance from which Shakespeare gets his story is, 
that in the days of the Capulets this building was a mon- 
astery, that Juliet lived here, and that in order to see her 
Romeo scaled the garden wall ; how he did this does not 
plainly appear, as the wall on the inside is full twelve feet 



36 ITALY. [^August, 

in height, but then the story looses none of its interest on 
this account ; Shakespeare has told it, and told it well, and 
the play that has made the place historic is here offered 
for sale in four or five languages, and hundreds of cards 
principally of Americans are to be found on the tomb. 

3. — Arrived at Venice last evening, and went to our 
hotel in a gondola, from which we stepped into the door. 
What a strange city in the sea ? 

" The sea is in its streets." 

It has but one railroad, and this has for two miles to be 
built, like the city, through the water, on piles. Venice 
now contains 150,000 inhabitants, though it was once much 
larger, and I predict that in less than 500 years more it 
will be uninhabited, though it has stood here, or a part of 
it at least, for probably 2,000 years.* In fact, they show 
you, in the Church of St. Mark, sculpture which they 
assert was executed 22 centuries ago ; two beautifully 
wrought columns of allabaster, ten feet in height and ten 
inches in diameter, are pointed to as having originally 
been in the Temple of Solomon. The ashes, too, of St. 
Mark, the guide tells us, are here deposited, and his tomb, 
or something that passes for it, is also to be seen. A tower 
300 feet in height, built some 400 years ago, stands near 
the Church in the square Piazza San Marco, which is the 
only public square, and is 200 yards long by 100 wide. 

* There has recently been a proposition to fill up all but the grand 
canal, converting them into streets, and to navigate the former by steam. 
If there is money enough in Italy available to do this, the existence of 
the city may be preserved. 



1881.'] ITALY, , 37 

From the top of this tower a fine view of the city and the 
Adriatic, with its hundred islands, is obtained, and it is 
stated that it was here that Gallileo invented the telescope ; 
and yet, as high as this tower is, Napoleon is said to have 
ridden his horse to the top. This, at first thought, might 
seem to be impossible, but the stairway, instead of being 
steps and spiral, is an inclined plane, the grade of which is 
probably four inches to the foot, full three and a half feet 
wide, and as the shaft is square, and there is a level space 
or landing at each corner four or five feet square, a horse 
could easily make the turn ; the floor the whole way is laid 
with brick. In this court or square, as the old bell on the 
tower strikes two, thousands of pigeons flock to be fed. 
We sat waiting for the signal, having been provided with 
corn by the guide, and it was interesting to see how they 
knew the hour, for scarcely had the sound of the last 
stroke died away when they came flocking by the hun- 
dreds. No one is permitted to kill or even frighten them ; 
hence they are quite tame, and will eat out of our hands. 
Ever}'' one has heard of the Bialto and the Bridge of Sighs, 
and the latter, with its surroundings, presents one of the 
most hemous illustrations of cruelty and barbarity any- 
where to be found. The canal over which this arch is 
thrown is about twenty feet wide, and walled on both sides 
by high buildings, one of which, a large, dark, massive 
stone structure, with square, grated, windows, was once the 
States prison. On the other side, and directly opposite, is 
the Doge's Court Chambers, where those imprisoned for 
treason were tried. In going from the prison to this 
chamber they were obliged to pass through this bridge, 
though from the inside it has no resemblance to a bridge, as it 



38 ITALY. [^August, 

is a dark, narrow, stone causeway, with only four singularly- 
constructed places, two on each side, where light can be 
admitted. These openings are a cluster of diamond-shaped 
holes, cut through the solid stone, and as the prisoners 
passed these, and looked out on the water beneath, they 
sighed for their freedom, without hope for their lives — 
hence the name of the bridge. After their trial, which, in 
most instances, was little else than a sentence, they were 
taken t© the stone dungeons below, and this " infernal 
region," as it is well named, surpasses for inhumanity the 
most fiendish conception of men or devils. By the aid of 
tapers we follow our guide down dark, narrow, winding 
stairways to the subterranean arched caves or dungeons 
beneath. There are over twenty of these, perhaps ten feet 
square, with each one small, round hole, about eight inches 
in diameter, cut through the massive stone wall, to admit 
all the air and food to the prisoner, but no light as these 
do not open to the outer world, but to a passage as dark 
as the cells themselves. Here between their trial and exe- 
cution they were confined, the door being closed. From 
this they were again taken still further down to, if possible, 
a still more diabolical place, where no daylight has ever 
entered, and after being tortured — the iron bars, &c., for 
this purpose still remaining in the walls — to make them 
confess, which, if they did not, they were beheaded and 
their bodies thrown through a hole in the wall, down which 
they fell to a spot where a gondola was in waiting to convey 
them to a certain locality for burial in the sea. Byron 
says: 



1881.'] ITALY. 39 

I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, 
A palace and a prison on each hand ; 
I saw from out the wave her structures rise 
As from the strol'ce of the enchanter's wand ; 
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand 
Around me, and a dying glory smiles 
O'er the far times, when many a subject land 
Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles, 
Where Venice sate in state, thi-oned on her hundred isles. 

The famous Rialto over the Grand Canal is a single 
stone arch of about ninety feet span, and probably the 
same in width. It is divided into three narrow streets, the 
middle one of which is lined on both sides with shops or 
stores. Close by this is pointed out the house of Shilock. 
It looks more like a prison than a residence — has iron 
gratings in its small, square windows. It was here that 
Shakespeare has the old Jew say: 

" Signer Antonio, many a time and oft, 
In the Rialto you have rated me 
About my monies and my usances." 

Opposite, and within ten feet of Shilock's house, is 
another old building, said to have been used for the first 
bank ever instituted. The house of Brabantio, the father 
of Desdemona, the wife of Othello, the Moor of Venice, is 
pointed out as we ascend the Grand Canal. There are no 
horses or carriages in Venice, and no place for them, or 
streets wide enough for them to travel. I, however, saw 
two of the former in a boat, and learned they kept two, 
perhaps these, on an island near by, and that children who 
had never seen a horse were taken there for that purpose. 
The gondola is the carriage of Venice ; there are over 



40 ITALY. l^August, 

4,000 of these, many families keeping their private con- 
veyance as they would a carriage. The streets, for they 
have some dry streets, or alleys, vary in width from three 
to ten feet. These are very crooked, and seem to have no 
names. They are paved with cut stone, as every foot of 
space is, not built over. Not a tree, plant, or flower is to 
be seen anywhere, except what are cultivated in pots. 
The houses are built of stone below the water and brick 
above, plastered and painted the usual yellowish-white color* 
and covered with tile. They are from three to five stories 
high, and most of the stairs and floors are either stone, 
marble, or a kind of concrete just as hard and smooth ; 
hence, while there is very little danger of fire, there seems 
to be very few facilities except water to extinguish it. 
Their drinking water is brought a number of miles and 
put in cisterns, which are only free to the poorer classes 
two hours in the day, one hour in the morning and one in 
the evening, and hundreds will congregate around these, 
awaiting their turn ; the crowd is so great as to require the 
police to keep order, and many go away disappointed. 
Water is carried through the streets by women, with two 
buckets suspended from a stick across the shoulders, and 
sold like milk. 

4. — Visited the Art Gallery, which is said to contain 
some of the finest paintings in Europe, but the eyes grow 
weary of looking at so many miles of these, and at the same 
conception of the artists transferred to canvas. I do not 
believe I appreciate this style of art. I would rather look 
at a live kitten than an imaginary dead Madonna ; hence 
I admire the human form in marble more than its shadow 



ISSl.^ ITALY. 41 

on the wall, but the form that breathes and speaks most of 
all. This night a serenade was given on the Grand Canal 
to the Queen of Italy, who was spending a short time at 
the royal palace, and a thousand gondolas are out loaded 
with sight-seers. A. large, square, fantastic-looking boat, 
built for the occasion, with awnings twenty feet high, and 
hundreds of colored lights of nearly every hue arranged in 
the form of festoons, carries the serenading party with 
music, vocal and instrumental, and after receiving the 
Queen on board we pass down the canal ; this is about fifty 
yards wide, and was covered for half a mile with gondolas 
so closely packed that there was scarcely room for the oars. 
They pressed hard against each other, while the scream 
and jibbering of the gondoliers, the sound of music, the 
bursting of rockets, and the lurid glare from colored lights 
on the buildings, while the moon, nearly at its full, shed 
its faint light, all conspired to make up a novel scene like 
some enchanted fairy land. Such is " Beautiful Venice." 
A fraud on civilization, it was founded by fishermen in a 
rude and barbarous age for their own protection from 
rapine and plunder, but the customs of our times have no 
use for such a city, and its decay may be slow but none the 
less certain. 

5. — At 12 m. to day we leave Venice by Bologne 
for Florence, a dusty ride by rail of nearly ten hours. 
Of the country between the two latter places a distance 
of probably sixty miles, very little can be said as so 
little can be seen, owing to the fact that one-half the 
distance is through tunnels in the Apennines, which rear 
their tall heads on every side, here and there a peasant has 



42 ITALY. [August^ 

stuck his hut ou the hillside, and attempted to cultivate 
small patches amongst the rocks ou the steep mountains, 
but how any human can be contented to live in any such 
way is hard for an American to comprehend, particularly 
one who has spent many years in the prairie countries of the 
west. But these people have but few wants, and no aspi- 
rations higher than their fathers before them ; the crucifix 
may be seen by the road side every few miles, and with this> 
they are contented ; expecting a smoother country in the 
next world, they make no effort to better their condition 
in this. 

6. — " See Florence and die " is an old adage, the origin 
of which is hard to ascertain, perhaps because some think 
this to surpass all other cities in beauty. It has, indeed, 
some fine scenery, and the Boboli Gardens belonging to the 
Petti Palace, are a paradise out of which no one would 
care to be thrown, particularly if afterwards he were 
obliged to cultivate for a living the dry barren mountains 
around here. The city lies in the valley, and on either 
side of the river Arno, and contains about 168,000 inhabi- 
tants ; it is almost surrounded by the Apennines, whose 
smoky tops are seen in the distance. Here sculpture and 
painting have been long cultivated, and their collections of 
art .in the galleries are so extensive as to weary and almost 
discourage the spectator in his attempt to see them. Over 
two hundred years ago Gallileo, who lived near here for 
eleven years, used as an observatory an old house that still 
stands on a hill overlooking the city. The church of 
Duomo, commenced six hundred years ago, is, it seems, 
still unfinished, as mechanics were at work on the south 



1881.'] ITALY. 43 

side ; it is a wonderful pile, and its dome is said to be 
larger than that of St. Peter's at Rome ; the money that 
has been expended on it for the past five hundred years, 
would, of itself, almost build a city, and educate, feed, and 
clothe the starving poor of Italy; and yet within its sacred 
precincts may be seen the zealous devotee, kneeling before 
a crucifix, and muttering his prayers, while within a few 
feet, and at the same time, the squalid beggar is asking for 
alms. So the world has gone, the more costly the churches, 
the more ignorance, superstition, and beggary. 

7. — Sunday seems to be but little observed at Florence, 
stores and shops are open, and the uneailihly yells of mar- 
ket venders on the streets, even till late in the night, makes 
it difl&cult to determine whether they have something to 
sell or are mad and fighting, for their scream sounds more 
like the latter than the former. 

8. — After a long, warm, and dusty ride of over 200 miles, 
from Florence to Rome, we arrive at the Eternal City. A 
part of the country through which the road passes, seems 
once to have been the bed of the sea, but now resembles a 
kind of garden or orchard, with thousands of trees each 
bearing a vine ; but whether for this purpose alone, or the 
double one of bearing fruit as well, I could not learn ; 
though they had the appearance of fruit trees, no fruit 
could be seen. Other portions of the country are broken, 
barren, and parched with the drought, as it rarely rains 
here in the* summer months. The climate though warm is 
not oppressive, owing to the dryness, and the nights are cool 



44 ITALY. \_Augusl, 

and pleasant ; the hills are white with age, and their faces 
furrowed by many a weary century. 

9. — Visited the Palatine Hills, where, crumbling to ruins 
you see the Palaces of the Caesars. And what ruins ! No 
description can be given so that a mind can comprehend 
their immensity, much less conceive what they were, when 
2,000 years ago they shone in their matchless splendor. 
Sixty-three acres built over with massive columns, arches, 
and palaces above, and subterranean passages and vaults 
beneath. Many of these had lain for centuries buried from 
ten to twenty feet by the debris of crumbling walls and 
broken columns ;"but within the last century they have 
been excavated, and you now have a better idea of their 
magnitude. The Italian Government has control of all 
these historic places now, and a hired lackey with his sword 
clanking at his heels, is watching from a nook in some old 
wall, to see that no enterprising Yankee puts the whole 
thing in his pocket and carries it off. So here like the 
skeletons of some extinct race of giants, these frescoes, 
mosaics, columns, and crumbling arches lie, magnificent 
even in death. 

10. — To-day I walked over the Forura whose broken 
columns had, for a thousand years, been buried beneath the 
debris of accumulated ages. I stood on the marble plat- 
form from which it is said Brutus and Antony addressed 
the Romans after the assassination of Caesar, and viewed 
the spot where the excited populace burned his body ; near 
by, too, on the left of the Forum, it is supposed Virginius 
snatched the knife from the butcher's stall, with which he 



1S81.'] ITALY. 45 

killed his daughter. But the only auditors here to-day 
who witnessed these excitiug scenes, is the dumb, cold mar- 
ble, speaking only by its silence. For centuries the van- 
dals have been at work amongst these ruins, carrying away 
the massive columns, and statuary to build and decorate 
churches and other edifices ; hence, it is difficult to find a 
public building in Rome less than three hundred years old, 
some parts of which have not been taken from some tem- 
ple or building older still. The palace of the present 
King of Italy, has not an imposing exterior, and even 
inside is not as grand as one might suppose, as he has an 
annual income of two or three million dollars, but it con- 
tains some very fine statuary and painting, besides pictures 
in tapestry superior, perhaps, to anything of the kind to 
be met with anywhere, and, in my judgment, more natural 
and life-like than any oil paintings by Rubens, or Ra- 
phael. Rome has about 360 churches, and about three 
beggars for each church. One of these costly edifices, that 
of Scala Santa, has a number of marble steps inside, which, 
they assure you, are the identical ones from the palace of 
Pontius Pilate, down which Christ walked. ISTo one is 
permitted to ascend them, except on his knees. I did not 
go up. In another church they show you piles of human 
bones that belonged to former monks. For many years, 
until recently, when a monk died he was buried in the 
earth in the basement of the church, this space was only 
large enough to hold forty bodies, and when full, and 
another grave was needed, the bones of the one first inter- 
red were taken up and cleaned, and now hundreds of these 
bones are artistically arranged on the walls in the shape 
of pyramids, stars, crowns, crosses, &c. 



46 ITALY. [August, 

11. — As every body has heard of St. Peter's, we had set 
this morning to "take it in." It is probably the largest 
building of the kind in the world, being one hundred feet 
longer than St. Paul's, at London, and in magnitude all 
others are totally eclipsed, though in richness of finish and 
beauty, St. Paul's of Rome outranks it. The top of its spire, 
or cross that surmounts the dome is 426 feet high, the highest 
point, it is said, ever built by man. I stood on the dome 
and looked out on the scene below. Any one who has 
done the same will know what I saw ; none else ever will. 
Here rolled the 

Troubled Tiber chafing with its shores, 

as in the days of Caesar and Cassius, the city spread out 
on every side with church spires, columns, ruins, and wind- 
ing streets, presents to the eye a sight rarely seen, and for 
beauty of this kind, never surpassed. Not that Rome now 
is itself such a beautiful city, it is not; but at such a great 
height, the unbroken view, even away to the Mediterra- 
nean ten miles off, together with the stupenduos and un- 
equalled ruins, makes the scene unlike others, and only 
such as — 

" The Great Empire of Rome can furnish." 

This afternoon visited the Catacombs on the Appian Way. 
This road of which so much has been said, was made, it is 
thought, by Appius Claudius Cascus (whoever he was) 
nearly twenty-two hundred years ago. It is a straight 
line for sixteen miles, but it is not, and never has been 
graded with any skill or judgment, and in beauty and 
durability does not begin to compare with the road built 
by Napoleon from Paris to Brussels. It is so narrow that 



1881.'] ITALY. 47 

it is with great difficulty that two carriages can pass each 
other, and is up and down hill just according to the natu- 
ral lay of the land over which it passes ; it was originally 
paved with broad stones, but is now only a hard macada- 
mized bed. For sixteen miles outside the walls of the 
city this way was once lined on both sides with tombs, or 
repositories for the dead. No conception of what these 
were can be had from the name, but a faint idea may be 
gained by stating that one of these, still standing, and 
built for one woman alone, covers more than a quarter of 
an acre of ground, and is, to-day, after having stood over 
a thousand years, more than fifty feet in height. Few men 
now care to spend so much money on their wives, either 
living or dead, as did these old pagans. Let us give them 
credit for their devotion to their dead, though they may 
have had no well-defined ideas of any other world than 
this. The catacombs, some two miles outside the city walls, 
are a wonderful, gloomy, and dreary place. Each visitor 
is furnished by the old monk, who acts as a kind of sexton 
to the Church of St. Ignatius that covers the vaults, with 
a lighted wax taper that looks like a piece of tapioca, and 
down we go through the dark, narrow, winding passages, 
like a coal mine cut, through a strange kind of dark soft 
rock, in which all along, and branching oflf in every direc- 
tion, excavations have been made just large enough for a 
human body, in which, after it has been deposited, a marble 
slab, or pannel, with name, date, etc., closes up the opening, 
and thus by the thousands, one above another, five or six 
feet high, they disposed of their dead ; but most of these 
bones, as well as the marble panels, have been removed 
to other places, leaving the excavations where they once 



48 ITALY. l^Augusiy 

were, still iu the rock. Some of these bones are now prob- 
ably entombed somewhere, as those of St. Luke or some 
other Saint, and I fear that they are so mixed that some 
one may have trouble sometime to find his own, if he should 
ever need them in a hurry. 

12. — Walked through and over the walls and arches of 
the Colliseum to-day, and it spoke to me in the language 
of Ancient Rome ; it told of the two thousand years it had 
stood here, defying time and the destructive propensities 
of men, of the hundreds and thousands of human lives 
that had been sacrificed within its arena to gratify the 
brutal propensities of the 80,000 spectators there assembled, 
of the generations it had seen come and go, until its time 
worn countenance plainly told it had become a stranger 
amongst a race of men who knew it not. All this, and 
more, iu solemn silence was the story it told, and though 
it has passed through so many changes, has been used as a 
quarry to furnish building material for other edifices, its 
old walls which measure over 20,000 feet iu circumference, 
and where unbroken, 150 feet in height still stand, and to 
unborn generations will tell this old story over and over 
again ; and yet, as old as it is, and the great number of 
churches and edifices it has contributed its columns and its 
ornaments to build, many blocks of stone still remaining, 
had at one time evidently formed a part of structures of 
still greater antiquity, as their shape and carving had no 
relation whatever to the present building, having in many 
instances been covered by the builder entirely from sight 
until the ravages of time revealed them. The Baths of 
Caracalla, or all that is left of them, are perhaps more in- 



1881.'] ITALY. 49 

credible and indescribable than the Colliseum. The walls 
now standing resemble, at first sight, high clay hills or 
mountains. The structure was a quarter of a mile square 
its floors composed, or covered, with fancy colored mosaics 
tastefully wrought in flowers and images, while its walls 
inside were paneled with diflTerent colored marble and fine 
sculpture. These old Romans then meant to keep clean — 
one of the lost arts to the Italians of to-day — the aqueducts 
of Nero, the columns of which are still standing, demonstrate 
their appreciation of water, and how they left nothing un- 
done to obtain it. I was somewhat surprised in passing 
through the Capital Museum to have pointed out to me a 
thin small beardless face as that of Marcus Brutus, and 
another not much larger as Julius Csesar, while a large 
fine strong face with full beard they say is Caius Cassius, 
and I thought, and still think that some Buttercup must 
have mixed the babies, or somebody had blundered. 
Shakespeare who makes very few historical mistakes rep- 
resents Csesar, as saying to Antony — 

If my name were liable to fear, 
I do not know the man I should avoid 
So soon as that spare Cassius. 

But the bust here is much larger and finer looking than 
his own, besides a bust of Caesar in another gallery has no 
resemblance whatever to the first, so that little reliance can 
be placed in either. But I leave Rome in the morning. 
Good-bye, old fellow ! I shall never see you again. I have 
no doubt but, like many another, in your younger days, 
you were handsome, but time has been busy with his work, 
and the " Noblest Roman of them all " has long since dis- 
4 



50 ITALY. l^AugUSt, 

appeared. May you renew your j^outh, and in the no 
distant future be peopled by a race of men with energy, 
ambition, and enterprise. 

13. — The country, by rail, from Kome to Naples, a dis- 
tance of 150 miles, has for the most part, in August at least, 
a barren and sterile appearance, is poorly watered, and in 
many places looks much like a desert with mountains in 
the distance. The grape here, as everywhere else on the 
Continent, is largely cultivated, but the grain crop would 
in our country be regarded as a failure. Naples is de- 
lightfully situated on a bay of the same name in the Medi- 
terranean, and thought to be one of the finest in the world ; 
it is the largest, and by all odds the most live and stirring 
city in Italy. The population is nearly half a million. 
The scenery is beautiful, stretching as it does along the 
water's edge and up on to the mountain's side, from which a 
fine view is had of the bay with its shipping, Mt. Vesuvius, 
and other mountains in the distance. The idea generally 
])revails that the city lies immediately at the base of the 
volcano ; this is not the case. There is, of course, a good- 
sized city all the way, but the main part of Naples is some 
ten miles distant, though it does not seem so far ; neither 
does the mountain appear so high until you observe that its 
top is often lost in the clouds, which, when blown away, 
leave only a column of white smoke, which rolls away as 
if from an immense coal-pit; but at night, when the red 
flame shoots up, and the moon, slowly rising, reflects on the 
still, smooth waters of the bay, the scene is grand, and as 
for hours I sat alone and viewed it from the high balcony 
of the Grand Hotel Nobile, I thought certainly this picture 
must have been executed by one of the " old masters." 



1881.] ITALY. 51 

14. — I was much surprised at the climate of Naples at 
this season of the year. Who is it that has told so many 
stories and falsehoods about the heat, impure water, Roman 
fever, and other nonsense to frighten people, as they have 
about malaria at Washington ? Were it within two hun- 
dred miles of the latter city I would advise people to go 
there as a summer resort to escape the heat. The moun- 
tain air and the delightfully cool breeze from the bay 
render th€ temperature pleasant twenty out of the twenty- 
four hours, and yet nine out of every ten persons, even 
those who have travelled on the Continent, tell you it is 
unsafe to visit Rome and Naples in July and August, or if 
you do you must- avoid drinking water, and it is a little 
strange that so many rather like to believe this. For my 
own part I had long regarded these stories as fallacious, 
and was disposed to test the matter for myself; so, instead 
of drinking no water, I drank nothing else, not even lemon- 
ade, tea, or coffee, and am well persuaded that those who 
pursue an opposite course, drinking wine and other artifi- 
cial rpixtures, are here, as elsewhere, the best subjects for 
disease. Were the people of any Southern city in the 
United States to live in one-half the filth, and in dark, 
narrow streets, eating and drinking miserable slops, as they 
do in these cities, one-half the population would die every 
year; but a dry atmosphere is always healthy, whether 
cold or hot. 

15. — Saw and spent the day walking the silent streets of 
the once buried, and now partially exhumed, city of Pom- 
peii. It is about fourteen miles southeast of Naples and 
four or five from the base of Vesuvius. Herculaneum is. 



52 ITALY. \^ August, 

or was, about three miles nearer Naples, and also nearer 
the mountain. Some 2,000 years ago Pompeii was par- 
tially destroyed by an earthquake, from which it had not 
entirely recovered, when, 200 years later, it was totally 
covered, to the depth of from twenty to thirty feet, by 
cinders and ashes from the volcano. The idea prevails, to 
a considei'able extent, that it was destroyed by the molten 
lava that flowed down the mountain's side. This was not 
the case. The first shower that fell, to the depth of from 
six to eight feet, was a kind of pumice stone, and probably 
not heated ; then some ten or twelve feet more of cinders 
and ashes, buried the doomed city with most of its inhabi- 
tants, and so it has remained ever since, with the exception 
of what has been uncovered. The Italian Government has 
charge of the work, and, in their slow way of doing things, 
may never finish it. It is now nearly a hundred years 
since the first work was done ; they are doing nothing now, 
and have not been for two or three years. If they will 
furnish the money, and employ Alexander Shepherd, he 
will finish the whole job in a year. That it is a great task 
to resurrect a whole city, there can be no doubt, and at- 
tended with much danger from broken columns and falling 
walls. The part already exhumed is perhaps about one 
mile long by one-quarter wide, as well as the amphiteatre, 
more than a mile distant. Many of the houses have been 
built with lava from previous eruptions from the moun- 
tain, and finished on the outside with cement and the same 
inside, then either paneled with marble, or frescoed. 
Much of the latter still remains, the colors still bright, the 
representations of men, animals, flowers, &c., being well 
executed. Of marble sculpture and columns there seems 



1881.] ITALY. 53 

to have been no end, as the old Romans appear to have 
had a weakness in this direction. The floors of many of 
their palaces, as that of Glaucus, the tragic poet, were laid 
with mosaic, the colors and images still being bright. The 
streets were paved with large, hard and irregular blocks of 
stone not systematically arranged, and some idea of the age 
of the city may be had when we find that these hard stones, 
by the action of chariot wheels, have been in ma,uj places 
worn in ruts from three to four inches deep. How many 
years would be required to do this would, of course, depend 
much on the amount of travel, but it was done before the 
city was destroyed, 1800 years ago. 

16. — The great event of this day was the ascent of Mt. 
Vesuvius. This is accomplished principally by means of 
carriages, about twelve miles from Naples, requires some 
eight hours, and costs about six dollars for each person. 
At the terminus of the carriage road, which is very good 
and safe, but necessarily very crooked, we are drawn up 
an incline plain, at a grade of about six inches to the foot, 
by a stationary engine, some two miles further ; here the 
trouble of the whole journey commences. Guides are 
plenty who propose to assist you in various ways, for five 
francs each ; pull you up with straps, or even carry you. 
Some employ these guides, and some prefer to go it alone, 
A few of our company got good, strong sticks, for which 
they charge half a franc, (10 cents,) and concluded to as- 
cend the cone about one hundred feet above. Seeing one 
of the guides start, I concluded to follow, but soon found 
myself in a dangerous situation. The lava from a recent 
eruption was hot, and the crust, in many places, so thin as 



54 ITALY. \^Augusty 

to be easily broken with my stick. Over acres this was of 
a bright yellow color, and thickly encrusted with sulphui*, 
the smoke and fumes of which were so strong as to be 
almost suffocating. I concluded to find a cooler, and safer 
place. Arriving at the base of the chimney, or cone, we 
climbed slowly up, the ascent is so nearly perpendicular, and 
the sides nothing but a kind of loose ashes or cinders, that 
gives under your feet like pebbles, or sand ; we slip back 
at lease one foot in every three. Finally we reach the top, 
and look over into the scathing, boiling crater, still some 
fifty feet away, but near enough for all practical purposes. 
The volcano, for some days, had seemed to be angry, and 
threatening, and just at this time, whether for the benefit of 
the company or not, was giving a slight exhibition of an 
eruption, huge volumes of white smoke, and red heat were 
rolling upwards, and every few minutes a rumbling sound 
would be heard, and an explosion of gas from below would 
throw thousands of red-hot cinders hundreds of feet into 
the air, most of these fell again into the oven to be again 
expelled. After viewing this scene for half an hour or 
more, the showers becoming more frequent, and some of 
the burning cinders falling uncomfortably near, I was 
satisfied to call it even and quit, and to admit that, in 
an emergency, it was capable of carrying out to the 
letter everything it had ever advertised on its program. 
It is undoubtedly the oldest and most inveterate smoker 
on record, and uses the largest pipe. The view from 
the top of the mountain is superlatively grand, the green 
bay of Naples before you, the city to the right, Pom- 
peii to the left, and Herculaneum, or where it once stood, 
just below. But I bid good-bye to Naples, a long and 



1S81.'] ITALY. 55 

last farewell. If its inhabitants have made any progress 
in the past eighteen hundred years, is it any wonder that 
Pompeii should have been destroyed ? Let me give you 
a little advice. We don't ask you to come to America, at 
least not for a hundred years yet ; but prepare yourselves 
for this migration by adopting the customs of Americans 
who come amongst you. Abandon your miserable style of 
living, your villainous cooking, your hard bread and black 
coffee breakfasts, your senseless table d'hote dinners of 
which the following is a sample : 

1. Soup. (Colored water, vegetable slop.) 

2. Boiled fish and potatoes, (without salt or butter.) 

3. I^oast beef and potatoes, (horribly cooked and spiced.) 

4. String beans, (to be eaten alone of course. ) 

5. Stewed chicken and lettuce in oil, (chicken not done.) 

6. Pickled peaches and gi^apes. 

7. Uncooked peaches and pears, (never good.) 

8. Cheese, (horrible.) 

Whole time changing plates at table, one hour, no butter, 
no salt in anything, and nothing cooked decently, hard 
bread, no tea or coffee, plenty of wine and lemonade if 
paid for extra ; and this ridiculous custom is not confined 
to Italy, but prevails all over the continent, and I would 
only suggest, as an improvement on this folly, that each 
bean be made a course, and each grape another. Why 
do you not give your guest something fit to eat, and not 
so many plates, knives and forks? Let them have soap 
in their bed rooms, and use a little more yourselves ; give 
them gas, also, instead candles for light ; cut down your 
bedsteads about a foot, so that no one can be killed by fall- 
ing out ; have your hack and cab drivers stop their infer- 



56 ITALY. [August, 

nal din of cracking their long whips ; put a bit in their 
horse's mouth instead of a barbarous brass or iron frame 
on his nose, cutting the flesh at every pull of the line ; let 
your men have more ambition than to turn the crank of 
a hand organ, or the tail of a donkey to guide him with 
his heavy load through your narrow and filthy streets ; let 
your women prevent their four-year old children from 
running naked through the streets, and quit wrapping 
their babies up like mummies, or sacks of salt, leave one 
foot out at least ; let your laboring men, what few you 
have, put on some clothing, and not go like South Sea 
Islanders ; have your soldiers pull the chicken feathers 
from their hats, quit playing the fool, and go to work at 
something useful — in short, have your country produce 
something more than organ-grinders, soldiers, priests and 
beggars. 

17. — After a long and uninteresting ride of sixteen hours 
from Naples, we arrive at Pisa, another old and played-out 
town of about 50,000 inhabitants, situated on the river Arno. 
The country from Rome to Pisa is not inviting, it would not 
even make a good grave-yard, and yet it looks as though 
it had only been used for this for the past century. As 
the people live principally in villages, it gives the country 
an additional desolate and deserted appearence. Peaches, 
grapes, and olives are cultivated on the hillsides, and hemp 
on the lowlands ; upon the whole a thousand acres of such 
land would be sufficient to bankrupt most men. The 
absence, too, of singing birds, either wild or in cages, adds 
to the gloom ; and yet it is not to be wondered at that any- 
thing with wings should not be found here ; bats, which are 



1881.'] ITALY. • 57 

very numerous, are about the only things that can fly and 
still remain. 

18. — There is not much to be seen in Pisa except the 
leaning tower, that every child has heard of. It is well they 
have a leaning tower, for who would think of coming here 
for anything else. Many suppose this tower, which is 
almost 200 feet high and some 14 feet out of perpendicular, 
was originally straight ; that owing to some defect in the 
foundation of one side, it has taken this leaning position ; 
but this conclusion is not well founded, the column has 
evidently been built 'just as it stands, and is a fine piece of 
architecture, seven rounds of marble columns one above 
the other. If the original design was to demonstrate that 
it could be built in this way and still stand, the project has 
been a success; but if it was to add to its beauty, it was a 
grand mistake. As I stood on its top to-day and looked 
below, I wondered if my additional weight would be likely 
to topple it over ; then I thought how many centuries it 
had stood here, and that if it fell just at that time, it would 
be the only way my name would ever be associated with it, 
but it showed no disposition to immortalize me in any such 
way, and as the old sexton was at the time furiously ring- 
ing one of its three huge bells without causing a percepti- 
ble vibration, I concluded it would stand a thousand years 
longer, and had not time to wait to see it fall. The road 
from Pisa to Genoa, one hundred and fifty miles, is a 
panorama of mountains, tunnels, and sea-side views. 
Genoa, where we arrived at six o'clock p. m., is another 
Italian city of about 145,000 inhabitants, and as churches 
and cathedrals seem indispensible, if not indigenous to this 
country, of course Genoa must have her's on exhibition. 



58 ITALY. [August y 

19. — This city like most other Italian towns puts in its 
claim for beauty, with its six story buildings and crooked 
narrow streets, along many of which you could not wheel 
a wheelbarrow and pass any one ; but there is one spot, the 
Catholic Cemetery, or rather depository for the dead, out- 
side of the city, that is the most beautiful and novel thing 
of the kind that I have ever seen, and must accord to who- 
ever designed it the credit of originality, and expect some 
day to see it imitated in this country, as I do not believe 
any conception of it can be had without seeing it, I will 
not attempt a description, but will venture the assertion 
that it is the most complete burial place in the world, as is 
its statuary the most beautiful in Europe. Say what you 
will of the " old masters," the moderns beat them in every- 
thing, in design, in finish, in life-like expression, and in the 
material used. Money is lavishly expended here by the 
living on those who, during their earth life, possibly I'e- 
ceived less kindness than now, but — 

" So runs the world away." 

It cultivates, at least, that faculty which gave origin to 
the belief in another world, or another life. The paintings 
and sculpture in the churches here are only a duplicate of 
what you may witness in other places all over the continent, 
they are principally representations of Scripture scenes and 
characters, and all wear the same sad and forlorn expres- 
sion. I wondered if these are correct likenesses, and if 
these personages have gone to Heaven looking just as they 
are here represented, and I wonder also, if it is necessary, 
in order to get into their company, to look just this way. 
If so, I wish to be excused. Give me a happy smile and a 



1881.'] ITALY. 59 

happy countenance, let me meet such either here or here- 
after, and the storm cloud will be radiant with sunshine. 

20. — Good-bye, Genoa! No wonder Columbus left 
you in search of another and better world, I think I should 
have done the same thing, though I should have drowned 
in the attempt ! The city seems to have a good harbor* 
and a reasonable amount of shipping, but it can make 
more noise for the same amount of business done than any 
city in Europe. The country from Genoa to Turin, a 
distance of one hundred miles, is better cultivated than most 
parts of Southern Italy, and numerous farm-houses give it 
a less desolate appearance. Still no country school house 
is to be seen either here or or anywhere else in Europe so 
far as I could observe. Turin is an old city, founded they 
claim over two thousand years ago, and now contains some 
200,000 inhabitants. What they all do, or how they all 
manage to live, is one of the problems to be solved. The 
mildness of the climate, however, renders their wants few, 
and whoever would buy the wardrobe of one-half the 
Italian people for one dollar a head would soon find him- 
self hopelessly bankrupt. 

21. — The most remarkable thing about Turin is its 
straight and wide streets ; remarkable, because it is such 
an old city. Perhaps no other of half its age has either 
wide or straight streets. The question arises, has it always 
been so, or, owing to fires, has it been reconstructed ? It 
has many fine squares, with fountains and statuary. Of 
course it has its cathedral and churches, which they claim 
are not surpassed for beauty anywhere. They tell you, too> 



60 ITALY. ^August, 

they have in an urn in one of these the identical handker- 
chief with which Christ wiped his face while carrying the 
cross ; this handkerchief is not on exhibition, but they 
assure you it is in there. The same story, however, is told 
you at St. Peters in Rome, besides they have two more in 
Italy, and three in France, making seven in all, and this 
weakens the story somewhat. In Rome they show you 
Nero's Tower, where it is said he sat and fiddled while the 
city was on fire, but those best informed say this tower was 
not built for 300 years after his death, and this completely 
destroys the efi^ect. What a pity it is to spoil a good story 
in this way? We take no interest in the tower now, or in 
the handkerchief either. 

22. — From Turin to Milan, about eighty miles, the 
country is better watered and better cultivated than any 
part of Italy I have yet seen ; some corn is raised, as well 
as broom-corn and hemp. Milan contains over 200,000 
inhabitants, and though a decided improvement on Genoa 
and many other Italian cities, its streets are by no means 
so wide and straight as those of Turin. It has its royal 
palace of course, and, seeing one of these in nearly every 
city, I was led to inquire if they had a king in every town; 
but it seems the king visits all these cities at stated times, 
and has a furnished palace in each. There are some sev- 
enty or eighty rooms in this one, all splendidly furnished. 
The ball-room has chandeliers of candlesticks, holding 
3,000 candles ; these are all in place ready to be lighted. 
Why they still persist in using candles in this way, instead 
of gas, not only here but all over Europe, is one of the 
things " no fellow can find out." They have gas in streets. 



18S1.'] ITALY. 61 

in offices, aud iu many private residences, but in their 
churches, palaces, and hotel bed-rooms, you see nothing 
but the dim candle. Perhaps in another thousand years 
they will use kerosene, and in an additional thousand re- 
sort to gas, so that when I return again I may find this 
improvement. 

23. — Milan claims to have the finest cathedral in the 
world, and, for its size, it is probably the most costly structure 
on earth. The expense of the marble sculpture and statu- 
ary, on the outside alone, would build four of the largest 
churches in America, and the work inside as many more. 
In a gilt circle, one hundred feet from the floor, in the 
arched ceiling, they tell you is one of the nails of the origi- 
nal cross. Twain says he thinks he may have seen a 
bushel of these nails in different places, but this is certainly 
not one of them, as it is not on exhibition ; they only point 
out the spot in the ceiling where, they tell you, it is. I 
greatly doubt if another such temple will ever again be 
built on this earth ; certainly not, unless the race is des- 
cribing a mental circle, which, in the future, will again 
carry it into the delusions and superstitions from which 
now it is fast emerging. The inhabitants of Milan and 
northern Italy display more energy than those further 
south. There is more travel here also, and more life. This 
may be owing to the season of the year, for if the hotels of 
Pisa, Rome, and Naples have no more custom at other 
times than during the month of August, they would not 
make enough to run a good-sized peanut stand. 

24. — Arrive at Arona, on Lake Maggiore. This is a 



62 SWITZERLAND. \_August, 

dead town, and ought to be buried. The lake resembles a 
river more than a lake. It is a long, narrow body of 
water, with, in many places, low banks, though in others 
the mountains approach the water's edge. The hotel ac- 
commodations here were the worst found in the whole jour- 
ney, and the drinking water furnished was perfectly awful. 
There was certainly no excuse for this, as the clear water 
of the lake, only a few rods from the door, would have 
been much better. The hotel-keeper contended that it was 
unsafe to drink water at that season of the year, and I 
strongly suspected he gave us the meanest water he could 
find in order to induce us to buy his wine, but, as we only 
stopped here a short time, he made no great speculation. 
At midnight we leave Italy for the luountains of Switzer- 
land in what they call here a diligence, and which it would 
requii'e a good deal of diligence to describe. Each vehicle 
is intended to carry ten passengers. The body is con- 
structed much like the old-fashioned stage-coach of fifty 
years ago ; then add a buggy-bed on behind and a car- 
riage-bed under the driver's seat before, and, with four or 
five horses, the odd craft is off, looking like a circus band- 
wagon, on its way to meet another engagement. We show 
at Breg to-morrow evening at four o'clock. 

25. — After an all-night and all-day's ride, we arrive at 
Breg, a small town on the Rhone river, in Switzerland, at 
the foot of the Tyrolese Alps. The Simplon Pass, over 
which the road leads, is a beautiful panorama of lofty 
mountain peaks, glaciers, cascades, canons, and precipices 
a thousand feet deep. Some twenty -five miles of the dis- 
tance from Arona a railroad might easily be built, but the 



1881.'] SWITZERLAND. 63 

rest of the way it would be extremely difficult, if not en- 
tirely impossible. The carriage-road, however, the entire 
distance, nearly 90 miles, is good, and, for horses accus- 
tomed to travelling it, not necessarily dangerous. "What- 
ever else they may do on the Continent, and through 
Europe generally, in an awkward and bungling mannei% 
they can, and do, build good roads. But their diligences 
are unnecessarily clumsy and heavy, being alone a good 
load for two horses. Then two men must accompany each 
one on every trip — the driver, and a man to look after the 
driver, and do the cussing in Italian. 

26. — Martigny is another played-out town, with noth- 
ing to interest any one except the Durand Cascades, some 
five miles up in the mountain gorges. It is well for the town 
these cascades are there. They were there myriads of years 
before the town was, and probably suggested the idea of 
building the town here in the first place, and they certainly 
seem to be the means of keejDing up the place, for nowhere 
on the Continent have the hotels appeared to be better pat- 
ronized, and teams are much in demand to visit this strange, 
wild, and romantic place. After going by carriage as far 
as horses can travel, a company has had enterprise enough 
to build a footwalk, of boards on irons, along the face of 
the perpendicular rock, in many places directly over the 
yawning chasm, down which the water plunges and foams 
a thousand feet or more. For seeing this great natural 
show a franc is charged, and the company possibly do all 
they can to keep their walks and steps in safe repair, but 
in many places they are frail structures, and show signs of 
decay, as the boards are kept constantly wet by the spray — 
where the sun has not shone for a thousand centuries. 



64 SWITZERLAND. \_Augusty 

27. — The journey from Martigny to Chamony over the 
Tete-Noir Pass, by carriages or mules, is tedious, and in 
many places dangerous, and much the worst road I have seen 
in Europe. The whole day is required to make the trip, 
though the distance is probably not over twenty-five miles. 
I would advise all young men who think of making this 
journey to do so on foot as they will certainly be obliged to 
walk a part of the distance at any rate, and pay ten dol- 
lars for their passage besides. Then they can make the 
trip in much less time than is required by these mule 
teams, and do so with safety, even without a guide, though 
it would be best to not go alone as in case of accident or 
robbers. This day was dark, cold, and misty, and we at 
one time rode through the clouds, it was interesting to see 
them form and float away around and below you, but I 
felt no desire to take a ride on one of them — thought for 
safety over these mountain crags I should prefer a mule. 
Chamony is not a large town, it consists principally 
of mountains and cascades, but people flock here to enjoy 
the fine scenery and to escape the heat of summer, and the 
latter they do effectually for fires and overcoats are iudis- 
pensible to day ; but who would not imagine he was cold 
when every time he looked from his window he could see 
mountains of snow and ice, though it might be, as it is, 
miles away ; but then the quantity makes up for the dis- 
tance, and after looking at it for a few minutes, I instinc- 
tively punch the fire and call for more wood. 

38. — Looking at the glacier of Mt. Blanc to-day, I con- 
cluded to go there, supposing it might be a mile or two, 
but after walking for half an hour or more it seemed to be 



18S1.'] SWITZERLAND. 65 

as far away as wbeu I started, but keeping on over deep 
gulches on slender footwalks, beneath which the cascades 
from the melting snow above plunged and thundered, along 
winding paths through pine forests, upwards and still up- 
wards, for over an hour, I at last came to the brink of the 
gorge which seems to be a deep groove cut in the mountain 
side near its base, this is probably a quarter of a mile in 
width, and a hundred feet deep, getting wider as it ascends 
until there seems to be nothing but a mountain of snow or 
ice, just as white, resembling in its fantastic shapes an ice 
orge on some great river. As this thaws away from below, 
e heavy body of snow and ice above, having no support, 
slides down ; this is the dreaded and dangerous avalanche 
of which no conception can be formed without seeing the 
magnitude of this unparalelled ice-cream freezer — miles 
in extent, and thousands of feet in height, so far above the 
clouds that no one but an idiot would think to ascend ; it 
is nearly 16,000 feet in bight, 8,000 being about the snow 
line, so that some 8,000 feet of this mountain is perpetual 
snow and ice. I am told that out of the thousands that 
attempt its ascent every year, only about fifty reach the 
top, and that of these one-half never return alive. Water 
enough is constantly flowing down its sides from the melt- 
ing snow to turn the machinery of the world, the noise 
from which is not like the heavy dull roar of Niagara, but 
like that of a spring thaw when all the streams are swollen. 
This is Mt. Blanc, fearfully and awfully grand ; the rains 
and suns of countless summers have failed to melt or 
soften its icy heart ; what little impression they make dur- 
ing the few months of summer is overcome by the snows 



66 SWITZERLAND. lAugust, 

of winter, and so they will never all melt till the " crack 
of doom." 



29. — This morning a large party started, as on every 
fair day, for the Mer-de- Glace, or sea of glass, and Mauvais 
Pass. This mountain from which these are viewed and 
crossed is not so high and more easy of access than Mt. 
Blanc, and as the trip can be made in one day, while the 
ascent of the latter requires three, in case you live long 
enough to make it at all, many prefer the shorter journey. 
This is made with mules, price of each, six franks ; guides 
are plenty who propose to lead your mule for six francs 
more, then they tell you it is impossible to get along with- 
out a long stick with a pike in the end, for the use of 
which they charge one-half frank ; then they sell you for a 
frank a pair of socks to wear over your boots to prevent 
your slipping on the ice, though they are so thin and worth- 
less that three steps generally tear them all to pieces. Thus 
equipped and mounted with six little sheep bells dingling 
from the old blind bridle, a. fool to each mule, and some- 
times two, we start on our journey looking like a caravan 
of Arabs on the desert. The day was fine, not a cloud in 
sight, the high white mountain peaks glistened in the bright 
sunlight like tall monuments in the city of the dead. The 
distance to the head of mule navigation is probably five 
miles, the path for the greater part of the distance is ser- 
pentine, and through a pine forest on the mountain's side- 
It is not necessarily dangerous, and yet lives are often lost in 
making the journey. On this occasion, shortly before reach- 
ing the top, we came upon a number of persons by the road- 
side surrounding the body of a large man to whom they 



1881.'] SWITZERLAND. 67 

were attempting to give some stimulant. I immediately- 
dismounted, and upon going to the spot found the man was 
dead. As none of his companions could speak English, it 
was difficult to get at the facts in connection with his death, 
but from his appearance I inferred he had been subject to 
epilepsy, that the fatigue of the journey, and great eleva- 
tion had induced an attack causing him to fall amongst 
the rocks, producing concussion of the brain from which 
he died. The crossing of the glacier, the mer-de-glace, 
with a good guide, is neither difficult or dangerous, while 
that of Mt, Blanc is both ; the ice is as white as the driven 
snow, and very hard, in some places crevices several inches 
wide are observed, such as occur in large rocks ; how deep 
these may be there is no means of knowing, they are 
usually filled with clear ice-cold water as all the water flow- 
ing from these glaciers is ; but the fall being so great over 
the rocks, and a kind of gray soft gravel, by the time it 
reaches the larger streams in the valleys it in color and 
appearance i-esembles soap-suds. All the large streams 
here are of this character, and they foam and dash through 
their rocky beds with a current perfectly fearful. 

30. — The journey from Chamony to Geneva, a distance 
of fifty miles, is made by diligence ; the road is safe and 
good, and for the greater part of the way there can be no 
good reason why a railroad should not be built. Geneva 
is a pretty city, of 50,000 inhabitants, situated on the river 
Rhone in a delightful valley, with mountain peaks in the 
distance ; amongst which the bald head of Mt. Blanc is 
still conspicuous, and as the rays of the setting sun are 
reflected from its summit, and it retires behind the western 



68 SWITZERLAND. ^August, 

hills, it seems discouraged that while for ten thousand cen- 
turies it has warmed and invigorated all else in nature, it 
has shone here to little purpose. A good deal of enter- 
prise and modern taste are exhibited at Geneva, and Eng- 
lish is spoken in shops, hotels, and offices more generally 
than at any city, perhaps, on the Continent ; besides the 
citizens dress with more taste, and the ladies look more 
civilized. It is a delightful summer residence, and many 
come here for this purpose. How the climate may be other 
seasons I have no means of knowing, but at this time it is 
quite cool, so that winter clothing and fires are not at all 
uncomfortable. The manufacture of watches and musical 
instruments, particularly music boxes, seems to be the prin- 
pal trade of Geneva ; some of the latter are very fine, and 
vary in price all the way from $2.00 to $500. They have 
musical writing desks, musical bottles, and even chairs that 
play when any one sits on them. 

31.- — -They show you the old church here where John 
Calvin preached, aud the house where he lived. Whether 
he could be considered a reformer, or whether the doctrine 
he preached was any improvement on that he condemned, 
is a matter of opinion. Such men as he, Robert Knox, 
and Martin Luther, get people to thinking, and the agita- 
tion of thought is the beginning of wisdom, though change 
is not always progress or improvement. 

September 1. — The country from Geneva to Berne 
is probably the best part of Switzerland. The distance is 
150 miles, and the scenery up the beautiful blue lake of 
Geneva is very fine. Berne is not so large or so pretty as 



1881.'] SWITZERLAND. 69 

Geneva; population probably 40,000. It is the capital of 
Switzerland, and apart from this has for the sight-seer little 
of interest. The day was dark, cold, and wet, and, as 
some of our party seemed not to know what we had stopped 
there for, I suggested that it might have been to sleep, as 
the place seemed to be a success for this purpose. Still the 
hotels were full of guests. English and Americans keep 
up these cities in the summer. How they subsist during 
their long winters I do not care to stay to find out. The 
climate at this season of the year is pleasant enough, but 
the cooking is inexcusably miserable, and this seems uni- 
versal all over the Continent. There is one dish that 
appears more common than all others ; it consists of empty 
plates. I should think about five hundred of these are re- 
quired at every dinner for a small party. When will they 
learn anything ? 

2. — The first 25 miles from Berne to Interlacken is made 
by rail ; then some ten miles by boat, on the beautiful 
Lake Thune ; then again by railroad on curiously con- 
structed, double-decked cars that carry as many passengers 
on top as inside, and besides gives them an opportunity to 
throw something at the engineer, if, in case of accident, 
they should want the train stopped ; for nowhere in Europe, 
so far as I have seen, are there any bells on the loco- 
motives, or any way for a passenger to signal an engineer 
to stop. The usual custom at a station is, after fussing for 
half an hour over baggage, (luggage, as they call it,) for a 
bell on the depot to be rung. Then some fellow blows a 
little dog-whistle ; the engineer's whistle is then sounded, 
and the dog-whistle blows again ; then the train starts, and 



70 SWITZERLAND. [September^ 

you see no more of the conductor till it stops at the next 
station, unless he happens to crawl along the outside of the 
car and poke his head through the window, as they some- 
times do, to ask for your tickets. You have no water, or 
any other accommodation more than in a common road- 
carriage, and not half as much, for the latter can be stop- 
ped at will — but this custom is all of a piece with 
most others. For instance, here, at Interlacken, they 
have a custom of taxing every guest that stops at a hotel 
half a franc every night because a baud plays somewhere 
in their town ; it makes no difference whether you hear it 
or not ; they say you might have gone, and therefore have 
the ten cents to pay all the same. Their music is going on, 
I presume, now while I write, but I prefer to pay ray dime 
for the privilege of staying in my room, for the night is 
wet and so cold that I write with two coats on, and am far 
from comfortable ; but no wonder, when you can see snow 
on the mountains in every direction. 

3. — Interlacken is not a city or even a large town, unless 
you count in the mountains ; it is a small village of hotels^ 
very pleasantly situated in a narrow valley between the 
lakes Thune and Brienz. It seems to derive its support 
principally from tourists who resort here to escape the heat 
of summer ; and this we are certainly doing to-day, for it 
is not only cool, but cold, requiring a good fire, about which 
there seems to be quite a lively competition for seats. What 
will become of these hotels in the winter it is hard to con- 
jecture, guess they will have to be closed, and their pro- 
prietors go to hunting the chamoise goat on the mountains. 
It would seem as though this was a great business here, for 



18S1.'] SWITZERLAND. 71 

they show you more chamoise horns than there are goats 
in Switzerland ; think they have some way of manufactur- 
ing these, and if you do not know the false from the 
genuine, they answer every purpose ; they have them on 
canes, umbrellas, and toys, and yet you rarely see any of 
the little animals that furnish so many bushels of these 
horns. 

4. — After two days rain this morning was bright and 
clear, and the snowy peaks of the Bernese Alps glisten in 
the sunlight like crystal palaces of some Magi of the upper 
air. We start in carriages to visit the wonderful glacier of 
Grindelwald. After a three hours ride up a beautiful val- 
ley, with high mountains and cascades on every side, we 
leave our teams and ascend the mountain still further on 
foot. The ice seems to be close at hand, but it requires a 
tiresome walk of an hour to reach it. Tliis appears clearer 
and liarder than that of Mt. Blanc, but here as there, some 
enterprising genius, with an eye to business, has run a 
tunnel, some eight feet high and six wide, a hundred feet 
or more into the solid ice, and lit it up with lamps, and of 
course charges you a franc for walking in ; he might just 
as well have extended it a mile or two, for it would stand 
a thousand years, unless an earthquake broke it to pieces. 
Why don't he start an ice cream saloon in there ? The ice 
would cost nothing, and goat's milk is plenty in the valley; 
but the Switzer, like the Italian, thinks more about his wine, 
beer, and sour bread. The Italian cuts a slice of this, feeds 
it to his mule, and then helps himself; I had formerly 
thought a mule had some sense, but when I saw him eat 
that bread, I lost all confidence in his judgment; an ostrich 



72 SWITZERLAND. [September, 

might possibly eat it, if he had beeu a week without a good 
square meal of glass and old iron, but it looks bad for a 
mule. Ladders could be had here to climb the glacier, 
and anyone who wished, could break his neck, for a small 
fee ; but for my own part, having but one neck, the in- 
ducement did not seem sufficient to make the exchange ; 
besides, I had seen about enough of glaciers to last me the 
balance of my life ; and if I should ever encounter ex- 
cessive heat anywhere, I shall think of the days spent on 
these ice mountains, and defy sunstroke. A few hours 
later to-day, a young Englishman, by the name of Latham, 
lost his life here by falling into a deep gorge, and his body 
was not found till next morning. 

5. — The joruney from Interlacken to Lucerne is made 
by railroad, steamboat, and carriages. The scenery is 
lovely, mountains, valleys, lakes, and cascades, all combine 
to make the Brunning Pass unequalled in Switzerland. 
All day long you never lose sight of snow and ice, in some 
places a thousand feet in thickness, and in others only in 
isolated drifts in the mountain gorges, but the sight of this, 
together with the jingle of sleigh-bells, a string of which 
the driver never fails to put on every horse, reminds one of 
mid-winter, though the sun may be shining warm and 
bright in the valleys. Ten hours were required to make 
this journey, and, as the day was fine, it was one of the 
most pleasant spent in Europe. 

6. — To-day we ascend the Righi, a high mountain in 
sight of Lucerne, but really eight or nine miles distant ; 
we reach its base by steamer on the lake, and its top by 



1881.'] SWITZERLAND. 73 

■open cars pushed up an incline plane of four inches to the 
foot by a curiously constructed locomotive. The grade is 
fearfully steep, and it throws a chill over the passenger 
on looking out to see if the car is suspended in mid air, or 
resting on something permanent. For three or four weeks 
I had schooled myself in looking down deep gorges and 
chasms, but my courage was taxed to its utmost here by 
sometimes not being able to see any bottom. The road, 
however, seems to be well built, and accidents rarely occur. 
The Righi is not quite 6,000 feet in height, aud, therefore, 
below the snow line; but being almost surrounded by lakes, 
the fine view from its top is unobstructed by other moun- 
tains, and is superlatively lovely. This is a great place 
for tourists. The hotels at the summit furnish accommo- 
dations for several thousands, and in the summer they are 
well patronized ; but during the long winters thej'^, as well 
as the road, must be dead stock. Many stay over night 
here to see the sun rise, but as it is cloudy, misty, or rain- 
ing two 'days out of every three, very few are gratified- 
When the clouds and mist clear away the lakes appear as 
green as the foliage that covers the mountains. Cities and 
hamlets deck the valleys that stretch miles on miles away, 
with snowy Alpine peaks in the back ground, and as the 
bright sunshine like a calcium light is thrown on the 
picture below, it is like the changes of the kaleidoscope, 
or the phantom visions of a fairy land. One thing that 
attracted my attention in this mountainous region was the 
number and variety of beautiful flowers. Why do they 
select this cold chilly atmosphere to 

* * * * " blush unseen, 
And waste their sweetness on the desert air? " 



74 SWITZERLAND. {^September y 

U 
Do they prefer to live, and even if need to die in retire- 
ment, unless some one should come who could appreciate 
them ? Here is that strange white velvety star-shaped 
flower, if flower it can be called, the Edelweiss ; it evi- 
dently belongs to the family immortalis, and is never found 
I believe, except in the vicinity of perpetual snow. They 
appear to be held in high estimation, and are gathered by 
the peasants and sold to the innocents for a franc each — of 
course we invested. The Eye-bright {Euphrasia officinalis) 
is very numerous, as well as the low evergreen shrub called 
Ling, that much resembles the Scotch heather, but it is not 
so tall, and in places covers acres of the mountain sides 
with its little purple flowers. These, and many others that 
seem to be indigenous to these mountain crags, lend their 
variegated tints to embellish for the eye of the wanderer? 
these pictures in nature's gallery. 

7. — Lucerne, as well as the surrounding mountains and 
valleys, is filled with traditions of William Tell and Arnold 
Winkelried. They have also a very good representation 
of a dead lion 28 feet in length, cut out of the solid rock, in 
commemoration of the Swiss guard who fell in defending 
Louis XVI against the mob at Paris in 1792. A high 
rugged mountain, rising abruptly from the lake, is called 
Pilate, and there is a tradition that Pilate left Judea and 
Avandered to this mountain, from the top of which he com- 
mitted suicide by plunging into the lake. 

And still it is said, when day hath fled, 

And moonbeams gild the night, 
His spirit walks, and wildly talks. 

Upon this giddy height. 



1881.'] PARIS. 75 

This story does well enough as a legend, but the man who 
believed it died many years ago and left no descendants. 
The stories of Tell and Winkelried are somewhat better 
authenticated, though no doubt greatly exaggerated. Still 
it is not at all surprising that an ignorant and superstitious 
peasantry, in a country so wild and romatic, should have 
many legends as wild as their mountains. But to-morrow 
I leave Switzerland, with its vine-clad and snow-capped 
mountains, its blue lakes, cascades, and honest simple- 
minded people. How they lived years ago, before tourists 
came amongst them, is hard to comprehend, since so much 
of their support now appears to come from this source. 
Stage, railroad, and steamboat lines are in the trade of 
carrying passengers alone, and all classes are more or less 
interested. The country, as a cold, rocky, mountain region, 
is a success, but for agricultural purposes it is and must 
forever remain a complete failure. 

8. — This morning we leave Lucerne for Paris, the jour- 
ney is long and tiresome, requiring sixteen hours. We 
pass the lake and plain of Simpax where under the oaks 

" The Switzers knelt in prayer." 

We bid good-bye to the Bernese Oberland, whose white 
peaks still glittering in the sunlight are fading from 
view, but not from memory. So unlike the rest of earth, 
so like the moon, cold, barren, desolate, and majestic 
in their dignity, their impress will fade only as ^ife fades 
into a dreamless sleep. The country here is much the 
best, and the best cultivated of any yet visited in this 
part of Europe, though this may be owing to the fact 



76 PARIS. [September, 

that it is more susceptible to cultivation. The farms are 
larger, or, at least, seem to be ; but as no fences are 
observed, it is difficult to judge of their size, I should 
think, however, they were much large than those of Switzer- 
land, where, if a farmer should slip on his steep mountain 
side, as he is constantly liable to do, he would be likely to 
fall from his own farm into the lands of his neighbor. 
We arrived at Paris at eleven o'clock at night too tired to 
think of anything but sleep. 

9. — We rode all day through the streets of Paris, visiting 
its places of interest. In regard to its beauty, it depends 
entirely on taste, while no one will deny that it is a beau- 
tiful city. One might like Ediuburg better, or another 
Florence, but take a part of these two cities, add the wide 
streets of Washington, some of the narrow ones of Brussels, 
Rome, or Naples, and a portion of the manufactures of 
London, and you have Paris, so that all tastes may be 
suited, either as it regards the city itself or anything that 
money can buy. One of the places visited was the tomb 
of the first Napoleon. No other man ever carved such an 
one with his sword, and certainly none with the pen. It is 
questionable if M. Thiers did not do much more for France, 
yet he lies in a modest family vault at Pere-la-Chaise, 
though it is said his remains are to be moved soon to the 
Pantheon. In another part of this cemetery, the most 
wonderful in the world, but which will soon have to be 
abandoned as a place of interment, a large sepulchre is 
conspicuous as being that of A.belard and Heloise. It is 
enclosed by an iron railing, inside of which, on its four 
sides, are beds of blooming flowers. The city probably 



188i:\ PARIS. 77 

keeps these in sucli a fine state of cultivation, and for the 
same reason, too, that crowds of tourists visit the place, 
because of the romance connected with these names that 
has followed them down through the uncertainties of 700 
years. " Here," said the guide, " is the tomb of the two 
greatest lovers of the world." But I thought that thou- 
sands, with as much love, and less heartless selfishness, have 
since lived and died ; many who — 

Never told their love, 
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, 
Pi'ey on their damask cheek. 

They sleep in every church-yard, and yet no spacious 
monuments mark the resting place of these life's heroes. 

10. — As we had spent some weeks in Switzerland, view- 
ing nature in her unbroken wildness, the cathedrals and 
art galleries of Italy had been quite forgotten, but Paris 
duplicates the whole thing, ^otre BameChurch, built some 
700 years ago, and in which ISTapoleon and Josephine were 
married, is, even for this age, a fine piece of architecture 
but then building expensive churches and castles was about 
the only thing the ancients excelled us in. This was well 
illustrated to-day on visiting the Museum of the Louvre 
and Luxembourg Gallery. In the former is one of the 
finest collections of paintings by Rubens, Mureillo, Vero- 
nese, and other " old masters," to be found in the world, as 
well as sculpture so ancient that no author is known, but 
the exhibition of modern art in the latter, to my mind, as 
far surpasses them as " daylight doth a lamp." But how 
their colors will compare in three or four centuries, time 
Avill have to determine. I said anything could be had for 



78 PARIS. [SejAemher, 

money in Paris ; yes, even horse meat. I saw a horse 
butcher-shop to-day, and not a " one-horse " shop either? 
but where nothing but horse meat is sold. Some of the 
party invited me to go in with them and have some ordered 
for lunch, but I did not feel just then as though I wanted 
any lunch ; guess the idea was all-sufficient. It may be all 
well enough, but some way I concluded to stick to hard- 
bread breakfasts and table d'hote dinners, as mean as they 
are, a few days longer. The Commune, ten years ago, 
played havoc with Paris. The Column Vendome has been 
rebuilt, but some of the finest public buildings in the city, 
or in the world, were totally destroyed, and are still ruins, 
their charred and naked walls alone being left. 

11. — I walked up the Champs Elysees to-day, which 
leads from the Tuileries Gardens to the Arch de TriumiDhe, 
a distance of nearly two miles. As a drive, a street, or a 
walk, it is probably unequalled in the world. It was built 
by Napoleon at a cost of over $2,000,000. The Arch, 
occupying very high ground, and being itself 150 feet in 
height, gives from its top a very fine view of the great city 
that spreads out in every direction. Radiating from this 
point, like so many spokes in a wheel, are fourteen wide 
streets, boulevards, and avenues, each with from two to 
four rows of shade trees, and dotted all over with thousands 
of moving vehicles that look in the distance like so many 
flies on a window. I am never fascinated with anything 
at first sightj but like Paris better the more I see of it, and 
much better than its weather. We had dust in Italy, snow 
in Switzerland, and rain here. If they had as great a 
variety in weather as in streets and shops, anyone might be 



1881.'] PARIS. 79 

suited, but in this and in cooking the city seems to be a 
failure. We hear a great deal of talk in America about 
French cooking. Well, it is something to talk about ; but 
any Western farmer's wife can get up a square meal that 
would make a French cook ashamed of himself, and this is 
pretty hard to do. She may not be so efficient in shuffling 
plates, or uncorking wine-bottles, but she will cook a meal 
that would satisfy any human appetite while he would be 
arranging his najikins and dishes. One of our party re- 
marked that some hotel-keepers in New York wei'e trying 
to adopt the French style of cooking, as well as the Eui-o- 
pean table d'hote dinners. I told him I would run much 
faster to such a man's funeral than to put out a fire in his 
hotel. 

12. — Paris differs in many respects from any other city 
on either continent. Its buildings are lower and more 
uniform. There are more tall houses on one street in 
Naples, or Chicago, than can be found here altogether, and 
there are very few red brick buildings in the whole city. 
The material of which the houses are constructed is prob- 
ably stone, or a yellowish brick finished on the outside 
with cement, or plaster resembling stone, and of a yellowish 
white color ; some might object to this sameness, but the 
architecture is usually fine, and you hear many adjectives 
applied to the city, but all express much the same idea — 
beautiful, lovely, magnificent. The streets are principally 
paved with stone blocks, on which there seems to be a thin ; 
coating of cement that wears up with constant travel, and 
wet, into a thin paste, not deep, but very disagreeable on 
a wet day. I should judge this to be a dear market geu- 



80 PARIS. \_Septembei\ 

erally, and you do uot meet with the staid, candid, square 
dealing of the Londoner here ; you must rely on your own 
judgment, and if that is defective, it is best to buy as little 
as possible, and never from anyone who cannot speak Eng- 
lish, unless you have a good knowledge of French. They 
post " English spoken " in their windows, but they do not 
say where. I asked a clerk in French if he spoke English • 
he answered me in English, " Not much," and this I found 
was about the extent of his English and my French. 

13. — This day was clear and fine, the first for nearly a 
week, a large party of tourists visited St. Cloud, or as the 
French call it San Clue, and Versailles. The former is no 
longer the regal palace it once was. In 1871, when the 
Germans were about to take possession of Paris, this place 
was burned by the French themselves to prevent it from 
falling into the hands of their enemies, it is still a ruin and 
questionable whether it will ever be rebuilt as its was for- 
merly. The parks and walks, however, are still kept in 
fine condition, and the location gives a fine view of the 
city some five miles distant. Versailles, some ten miles 
further away, is to Paris what Windsor is to London, 
though its grounds are more artistic. The Boulevard de 
la Reine, though not so long as the seven miles drive at 
Windsor, is more beautiful. The two rows of elm trees on 
either side are so planted and trimmed as to represent in- 
numerable arches of which the body of each tree serves as 
a column. The Royal Palace contains one of the finest 
collections of modern paintings in Europe. They princi- 
pally represent the various battles in the wars of the first 
Napoleon. Versailles is reached by carriages, by horse 



18S1.'] PARIS. 81 

cars, and by steamers on the River Seine. This stream is 
wider than the Thames at London or the Tiber at Rome ; 
but like the latter is not navigable, except for boats of 
very light draught. But I must leave Paris soon. Weeks 
might be spent here with many objects of interest still un- 
seen. For variety of beauty as yet no city on earth is its 
rival ; but it remains for the western continent to furnish 
this, which it will do within the next century. But I am 
off for Dieppe, London, and home. 

14. — This morning the sun rose bright and clear over 
the blue waters of the English Channel. I had heard so 
much of the trip from Dieppe to New Haven that I had 
learned to dread it, but on this occasion the water was as 
calm and still as an inland lake, and by twelve o'clock 
we have passed the examination in the custom-house whicji 
here consists pretty much of making a chalk mark on the 
baggage. How is this : Can these officers detect a smuggler 
at sight ; if not, why do they scrutinize some luggage so 
closely and pass others without a word ? They were looking 
principally for spirits, tobacco, and cigars they said. I told 
them I never bought a cigar in my life, a plug of tobacco, 
or pint of whisky, and they concluded I was safe. The 
country from here to London contrasts finely with what 
you see on the continent. The neatly trimmed hedges, 
the cattle grazing without a tether or herdsman, the farm- 
houses, barns, and orchards suggest the idea that by some 
mysterious means we have suddenly crossed the Atlantic 
and are traveling in America. But the smoke and spires 
of London are soon visible, and why should they not be? 
How can you travel towards it one hour from any point in 
6 



82 ON THE OCEAN. [^Septembev, 

England and not be within sight of it? I have thought 
it was only a matter of time when this city would cover 
the whole island, and London be England as Paris is 
France. But I leave this great empire city to-night for 
Glasgow, and to-morrow hope to hear the " wild waves 
saying" — " homeward bound." 

15. — A night's ride from London brought me to Glasgow 
at eight o'clock this morning in a dense fog, making it 
difficult to navigate the streets much less the Clyde. Our 
ship, the Anchoria, sails from Greenock this p. m. at five 
o'clock, and passengers go there by rail, in this way some 
two hours of time are saved, and often much more, with 
heavy vessels and low tides. So this is my last day in 
Europe, and though I have formed some agreeable ac- 
quaintances that I regret to part with, and seen much that 
was beautiful both in nature and art ; the country itself I 
leave with no regret ; it may be a law of our nature that 
while the youug may be easily fascinated by change and 
new scenes, those of more nature age are less disposed to 
part with old for new homes ; on the same principle, too, old 
countries adopt new customs much more slowly. There is 
a certain amount of courtesy due to age, and I, therefore, 
very respectfully bid this old country good-bye, extending 
at the same time to all of its citizens a hearty invitation to 
call and see us. We can find homes for you all, feed and 
clothe you all, and, what is little less important, educate 
you all. But Greenock is reached, it was to this city on 
that dark autumn day when — 

The gloomy night was gathering fast, 

that Burns had sent his trunk preparatory to sailing for 



1881.'] ON THE OCEAN. 83 

the West Indies, and from which he was dissuaded by his 
friend Cunningham, who saved him to Scotland. In an 
old church-yard here, overlooking the Clyde, is the grave 
of Highland Mary. This, to my regret, I am obliged to 
pass without stopping, as the setting sun and the dark 
cloud of smoke from the steamer in the frith admonish me 
there is not time, and that in a few minutes more we will 
again be " on the wide open sea." 

16. — This morning our vessel is lying-to off the north 
coast of Ireland ; the day is calm and the sea as smooth as 
a mirror. All day long we stay here, and the ride is as 
smooth as in a sled without horses. At three o'clock a 
tug from Londonderry comes in, loaded with Irish, most of 
them steerage passengers, for America. Many are in fami- 
lies, and some have young children. No wonder they 
desire to take them to a better country, where their future 
will be brighter and their advantages increased. We have 
65 saloon passengers on board, of whom one-half are 
Americans returning home, and about 800 second-cabin 
and steerage passengers. The last rocky cliffs of "Auld 
Ireland " are fast fading from view, and the wide Atlantic 
lies before us, where for many days we shall '^hear nothing 
of what occurs on land, and no one will hear of us. Many 
sails dot the horizon, looking like chandeliers hung from 
the sky. The evening is chilly, too cold for comfort on 
deck, but I presume this is customary here ; in fact, they 
report at Glasgow there have been but a very few warm 
days during the entire summer, and of over eighty days 
since leaving New York there have not been more than 
twenty that I have not been cold with winter clothing and 
heavy overcoat. 



84 ON THE OCEAN. [^September, 

17. — Day clear, with a high, cold wiud ; the sea is 
rough, and most of the passengers are sick. Some vessels 
appear to be steadier than others with the same sea, though 
this may, in a great measure, be owing to the direction of 
the wind. It is not surprising that ours is a little shaky, 
since it has 300 barrels of whisky on board, enough cer- 
tainly to make most things reel. The Avhistle is sounded a 
great deal to-day ; I don't know why; I can see nothing 
on the track, and there is no fog, bridges, or tunnels. Too 
cold to be on deck, so I stay below ; have a strange genius 
for my room-mate — a young Scotchman, who has never 
been to sea before, and I guess nowhere else much, is going 
to America to find his brother. 

18. — Dark and damp, with high, cold wind ; the sea is 
rough, and our old ship rocks like a bird's nest on a bough ; 
it rolls from side to side till the wheels miss the water, 
rattle and crash as if breaking to pieces. Not one-third of 
the passengers report at table. I am satisfied sea-sickness 
depends much on the state of the stomach before and after 
going on board. Passengers should eat a light diet and 
keep quiet ; a cup of Brand's extract of beef, quite hot, 
with a little salt and crackers ; then lie down most of the 
time. This, with the properly-selected homoeopathic reme- 
dies, will modify most cases and prevent many. All crude 
drugs and specifics for it are worse than useless. Take the 
advice of no one to walk or keep moving ; you will get 
motion enough from the boat ; keep as still as it will let 
you. 

19. — Still cold and disagreeable, not stormy, but the 



ISSIJ] ON THE OCEAN. 85 

same high wind ; the sun comes out at times, but much 
like a November day ; the sea is still very heavy ; only a 
few passengers come to their meals. If the entire voyage 
continues so rough the ship's company will save a good 
thing in the way of provisions. It is unsafe to attempt to 
walk without support. I fortunately have a large, easy 
chair fastened to the floor, and feel pretty secure. A lady, 
in passing, misses her hold on the door, and brings up on 
my knee, and the next minute she is piled up on the cabin 
floor ten feet away. Another falls ofl" her lounge, and goes 
rolling over the floor- like a thistle-down. An old gentle- 
man suddenly finds he has urgent business on the other side 
of the boat, where he goes with such force as to break his 
nose against the wall. Another, for safety, seats himself 
on the floor. A gentleman attempts to assist a lady, and 
they both fall over him. Of course the laugh comes from 
the very few who feel like it. I see nothing but the direc- 
tion of the wind for this tossing, as there is no storm ; but 
old Neptune is evidently disturbed about something ; hope 
he will calm down soon ; our ship seems as though it would 
go over. 

20. — Last night and to-day have been, if possible, 
rougher than any of the voyage so far, and there seem to 
be little prospect of its being any better soon ; it is impos- 
sible to sleep, as it is difficult to stay in our bunks at all f 
no one thinks of going on deck ; the waves dash over the 
sides of the vessel and darken the windows. We have 
now been out five days, and are about only one third of 
the distance over, but it is hard to see how the ship can 
make better headway in such a sea, besides we suffer from 



86 ON THE OCEAN. ISeptembev, 

cold, the heaviest winter clothing fails to keep us warm. 
There is no fire, except in the cook-room Avhere no one is 
permitted to go. The bed clothing feels as if packed in 
ice. It is safe to say two thirds of the passengers are sick, 
and some have been badly hurt from falling. I still, dur- 
ing the day, keep my old chair, and suffer more from cold, 
loss of sleep and appetite than anything else. I eat very 
sparingly, and have experienced no nausea for two or three 
days. If any one thinks he would fancy this kind of 
thing, he can have my place for a first-class ticket on a 
coal cart. 

21. — Last night about 11 o'clock, the engine suddenly 
stopped and the ship is drifting. What can be the cause? I 
lie still for half an hour and wonder, has it struck, is it leak- 
ing, on fire, and a number of other agreeable conjectures 
pass through my mind. My room mate is soundly sleeping, 
I conclude not to wake him, thinking if we were going to 
the bottom I envied his unconsciousness. Not feeling par- 
ticularly sleepy just then, I got up and found most of the 
passengers out, some had been on deck, and reported we 
had had a collision, our vessel had struck another, cutting 
it in two and sinking it with all on board. The excitement 
was intense, and the most prompt cure for sea-sickness I 
had ever witnessed. What kind of craft it was or how 
many were on board, we could not learn. A cry was heard 
for help that they were sinking, and though a boat was 
lowered and search made, not a trace, except a piece of 
spar, could be found. In a few minutes all was over, and 
nothing could be heard but the dashing of the breakers 
where — 

The death angel flapped his broad wings o'er the wave. 



1881.'] ON THE OCEAN. 87 

Whether it be from law, custom, or humanity, under such 
circumstances, we are obliged to stay here till daylight to 
see if anything further may be learned ; but the morning 
revealed nothing ; a large hole had been stove in our ship, 
into which the water poured, filling the chamber, but as 
these chambers are watertight it could not reach any other 
part of the ship, and this of course saved us from going 
down also. By eight o'clock we were again on our way, 
but making slow progress, against a head wind and heavy 
sea. It is fearfully grand to see these mad breakers foam 
and dash their white heads into spray ; I admire nature in 
her wildness, but believe I prefer burning or ice-covered 
mountains to this, unless I could view the sight from some 
hilltop where there would be less danger of getting wet. 

22. — After another fearful night the sun rose bright and 
clear this morning, and we congratulated ourselves we had 
seen the worst of the voyage, but the wind kept up, and 
the sea was heavy ; towards night it became rainy, and the 
wind increased. Have now been out one week and are 
only about half way over. I had always regarded a storm 
at sea as something to be dreaded, but find it is not neces- 
sary there should be a storm in order to insure a rough pas- 
sage. The fact is to be angry and fretful, is old ocean's 
normal condition, and when it is not so it is not healthy ; 
and one of its worst features is, when it gets in a fury it 
never knows when to calm down again. Very few vessels 
are seen to-day, perhaps we are the only fools out, as people 
have a dread of the sea during the equinox, though the 
steamers make their regular trips all the same. We have 
only run one hundred and fifty miles in the past twenty- 



88 ON THE OCEAN. [^September, 

four hours, about one-half of what we should have gone. 
Still, there is no help for us, we can't get out and walk. 
Another rough night is threatened ; sleep is much in de- 
mand, with but little in the market. 



23. — How are you feeling to day, has been the question 
generally asked for the past week, and while some answer 
" better," very few can say " all right ; " for if they are im- 
proving physically, mentally, they are far from serene, for 
the wind still blows a gale, and lashes the sea into a fury. 
There seems to be no cessation day or night, if it would 
only let up a few hours for us to sleep we could endure it 
better. But, who can sleep being tumbled and rolled and 
tossed every minute. I go on deck the first time for five 
days to take a look at the situation, but the whistling of 
the winds through the rigging, the roar and dash of the 
breakers, and the rolling and dipping of the ship soon 
cause me to retire in disgust. The weather is much colder 
than yesterday, and though we have made better time, one 
hundred and ninety miles. .We are still hundreds of miles 
behind, and at best must be two or thi'ee days late in get- 
ting into port, if, indeed, we ever do ; and the unanimous 
verdict amongst the passengers seems to be that in any 
event this will be their last trip on the ocean. 

24.— Though the wind is still high and cold, and the 
sea rough, this is a decided improvement over any day for 
the passed week. We still have over a thousand miles to 
go, but have made two hundred and thirty-eight in the 



18S1.'\ ON THE OCEAN. 89 

passed twenty-four hours, which is the best run with one 
exception since starting. We are now passing the banks 
of New Foundland, and hope soon to see fairer and warmer 
weather. What causes the peculiar bluish-green appear- 
ance of the water over these banks ? Sailors say they 
notice this change whenever they approach them. Is it 
because the^ depth is not so great? There can be no differ- 
ence certainly in the water itself, though it has more the 
appearance of an inland lake than the ocean. Some of the 
passengers try to make themselves comfortable on deck, 
but it requires all the winter clothing and wraps they can 
•command, for my own part I am cold in the drawing- 
room, with overcoat and winter gloves on ; but there is 
one consolation, we are not at all troubled with mosquitoes. 
A few of Mother Carey's chickens are to be seen ; what a 
strange bird, they seem to require no land, must live 
entirely on what they find in the water, on which they 
float like a chip, but whether they rest most on the wing 
or on the billow, who can tell? ^ 

25. — One fair day at last ; the wind has abated, the sun 
is out, and so are the passengers, enjoying the scenery 
which consists principally of the steamer Anchoria, the 
sun, sky, and water. It only takes a few minutes to see all 
these, and as we had seen them all before, except the warm 
sunshine, and smooth sea, we appreciate these. We have 
made over 300 miles in the past twenty-four hours, and 
begin to talk of getting home in three days more. The 
sailors put up all their canvas, and the wind is in our 
favor ; no sails in sight to day, but a piece of timber floats 



90 ON THE OCEAN. [Sejptefiiber ^ 

by that probably once belonged to a vessel of some kind that 
may have gone down in the wide expanse of waters, How 
many have thus perished in the past ten days, time only 
can determine ; or how many friends at home are patiently 
waiting their return, and wondering at the delay, but — 

Days, months, years and ages will circle away, 
And still the deep waters above them will roll. 

26. — Another fair day, though the wind is ahead, and 
in consequence, our progress is slower, only 192 miles since 
yesterday, and are now making less than twelve miles an 
hour, but we don't complain of the speed, or the fact that 
we are so far behind time, but rather rejoice that we are 
doing so well after our rough experience, and as the weather 
is so pleasant we get together on deck and have readings 
and songs, and near the drawing-room door is posted the 
following — 

NOTICE. 

There will be an entertainment this evening, at 8 o'clock^ 
in the music-room, for the benefit of the " Life Boat," All 
are invited. 

Then follows a programme, with the following names 
for readings, recitations, and music, vocal and instrumental : 
Mr. Olandt, Mr. McDougal, Mr. CrofFut, Dr. C. Pearson, 
Mr. Baer, Mr. Donald, Mr. Sweeney, Misses McClain, 
Swan, and Moul. No admission fee is required, but each 
one is expected to contribute something toward the life- 
saving service, and if there be any cause in the world that 
deserves assistance it is this. 



1881.'] " ON THE OCEAN. 91 

27. — Our entertainment last night was quite a success, 
and a good sura was realized for the life-boat service, which 
it seems in Europe is supported mainly by contributions 
and donations. May our mite recompense, in some degree, 
those daring fellows that brave the perils of the waves to 
save the lives of others. The fog to-day and last night is 
against us ; still we have made 290 miles in twenty-four 
hours ending at noon to-day, and are still 278 from our 
destination, which we expect to reach to-morrow afternoon. 
Passengers are busy writing letters to papers and friends, 
probably describing their rough passage and narrow escape. 
Some who had crossed the ocean seven times say they 
never experienced such a passage as this, and a few days 
ago declared if they got through this time in safety, noth- 
ing would ever tempt them to try it again. But they are 
feeling better to-day, and very likely, in a few years more, 
we will see their names registered in Paris. 

28. — Morning clear, but wind high and sea rough again, 
and to such an extent that some of the passengers have a 
return of their old comforter, sea-sickness. At ten o'clock 
the captain tells us we can see land, and if we cannot, it 
is not because we do not want to ; of course we are willing 
to admit it is in sight, but it takes a good share of imagi- 
nation to perceive it. An hour or two later, however, the 
coast comes full in view, and, except on the night of the 
disaster, when sick men run up on deck, I have never seen 
a more potent or permanent cure for any disease of thir- 
teen day's duration. We reach New York at 2 o'clock p. 
m., and I cross the ferry to Jersey City, but in doing so 



92 ON THE OCEAN. [Sept, ISSf] 

our boat collides with another, aud I wonder if these col- 
lisions will cease when I cease to travel. Took train for 
Washington, where I arrived at 11 o'clock p. m. Glad I 
had gone, glad I had returned. Should any one ask my 
opinion of this trip as a sanitary measure, I can only say 
" try it ;" for my own part I return fourteen pounds lighter 
than when I left; perhaps I am so indigenous to American 
soil as to not thrive on any other. 



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